CHICAGO and SHANGHAI, Aug. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Shanghai Futures Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange today announced that they will jointly host the "China Financial Derivatives Forum" in Shanghai, Sept. 26-27, 2005. The Forum will provide a unique opportunity for senior government officials, regulators and global industry experts to share knowledge about financial derivatives and the role they play in managing risk in a market economy. It will cover a range of topics to include financial engineering and risk sharing, legal and regulatory frameworks, and equity and interest rate derivatives. Chinese government officials who are confirmed to speak at the Forum include Cheng Siwei, Vice Chairman, Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, PRC, and Shang Fulin, Chairman, China Securities Regulatory Commission. "This conference demonstrates the high level of cooperation that exists between CME and our partner exchanges in Shanghai," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. "We look forward to sharing our experiences about the benefits of the global derivatives marketplace with such a distinguished audience, and we are honored by those representatives of the Chinese government and industry leaders who have chosen to participate in this Forum. Their contributions will be very important to the success of this event." "In recent years, with unremitting efforts SSE has successfully developed and introduced some new products such as ETFs and warrants, which have won positive praise and been well recognized by local and overseas counterparts," said SSE Chairman Geng Liang. "Product innovation has become a very important vehicle to improve our core competence. SSE is planning to set up a derivative product team in the near future. We have made significant progress in designing index futures after several years of research and development. This Forum, I believe, will be a good chance for SSE to learn from our counterparts all over the world, expedite the development and innovation of new products and introduce well designed equity derivative products, which will meet the demand of China's securities market and provide diversified products to the investors." "China represents enormous opportunities for business growth and plays a key role in our global strategy," said CME CEO Craig Donohue. "Already we have taken several actions to increase accessibility to CME products for Asian market participants. Our Singapore telecommunications hub, launched in late June, is improving access to our products and reducing connectivity costs for CME market users in Asia. Last year, we launched an Asian incentive pricing plan, which reduced transaction fees for hedge funds and commercial banks in the region. Strategic initiatives like these and our upcoming conference are designed to foster the growth of exchange-traded derivatives in Asia." "We think the Forum provides a valuable opportunity for the Chinese financial officials to understand more about the mechanism of financial derivatives markets in developed economies such as the U.S.," said Mr. Jiang Yang, CEO, SHFE. "It is our hope that the Forum will promote the communication between Chinese officials and market participants and their global counterparts, and consequently pave the way to the healthy and steady growth of China's financial derivatives market. We cherish the cooperation among our three exchanges that makes the Forum possible." Leo Melamed, CME Chairman Emeritus, said, "John Hay, the former American Secretary of State, once stated that the Mediterranean was the ocean of the past, the Atlantic the ocean of the present, and the Pacific the ocean of the future. This historic derivatives forum in Shanghai is clear proof of John Hay's prediction. The market reforms initiated under Deng Xiaoping have borne fruit and brought the Republic of China to the threshold of derivatives markets. It represents the dawn of a new era." In addition to government and exchange officials, the speakers will include respected industry leaders in futures, as well as from the larger financial services arena and academia. Dr. Myron Scholes, the 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and Chairman of CME's Competitive Markets Advisory Council, is scheduled to provide a keynote address. For more information about the China Financial Derivatives Forum please visit http://www.china.cme.com/ . About Chicago Mercantile Exchange: Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. ( http://www.cme.com/ ) is the largest futures exchange in the United States. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on CME Globex electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved about $1.6 billion per day in settlement payments in the first half of 2005 and managed $43.7 billion in collateral deposits at June 30, 2005, including $4.0 billion in deposits for non-CME products. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CMENASDAQ:CME), which is part of the Russell 1000(R) Index. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME, the globe logo and CME Globex are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. E-mini is a trademark of CME. CLEARING 21 is a registered trademark of CME and New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. S&P, S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Nikkei 225, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, TRAKRS, Total Return Asset Contracts and other trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks that are not proprietary to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. are the property of their respective owners, and are used herein under license. Further information about CME and its products is available on the CME Web site at http://www.cme.com/ . About Shanghai Futures Exchange: Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) was established in 1999 and operates commodities futures trading and clearing. It is under the direction and regulation of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). At present, futures contracts listed on SHFE are copper cathode, aluminum, natural rubber and fuel oil. SHFE upholds a strategic goal as to being a regulated, efficient, transparent and diversified futures exchange that mainly trades listed financial derivatives. There are over 200 firms now registered as members, which are disaggregated as futures commission merchant and proprietary traders. SHFE is a totally electronic exchange. It has already distributed more than 250 distant trading terminals all over China, so the market users can have easy access to the market from nationwide. Over the recent years, with the ever-increasing trading activities and scale on its markets, SHFE has exerted a deeper impact. Its status as one of the three price-fixing centers in the global copper market is further consolidated, its natural rubber prices are watched closely by the global users and the listing of fuel oil futures unfolded the exploration into energy futures. Meanwhile, SHFE spares no efforts in the research and preparation for the listing of financial futures and options. About Shanghai Stock Exchange: Shanghai is the first city in Mainland China to experiment with company stocks, stock trading and stock exchange. The history of stock trading in China can be traced back to the 1860s. On November 26, 1990, Shanghai Stock Exchange (hereafter referred to as "SSE") was established, which opened for trading on December 19. By the end of 2004, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has a total of 996 listed securities and 837 listed companies. As a collectivity, these company stocks have a total market capitalization of RMB 2,601.434 billion yuan. The number of investors with accounts reached 37.87 million. In 2004, RMB 45.6901 billion was raised through IPO and secondary listings at the Exchange. The SSE computer system has reached world-class standard after several rounds of system upgrading. It has a daily processing ability of 29 million orders or 60 million transactions, with a breath-taking processing power of 16000 transactions per second. The SSE dedicated satellite telecommunications network has the largest user base in China. Built with the state-of-art technology, this network consists of 3000 one-way substations and 1800 two-way substations. For more information, please visit our Web site: http://www.sse.com.cn/ . DATASOURCE: Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CONTACT: Anita S. Liskey, +1-312-466-4613, or Pamela Plehn, +1-312-930-3446, , both of CME; Yang Ke of SHFE, 86-21-68400000, ; or Yang Xin of SSE, 86-21-68806146, Web site: http://www.cme.com/ http://www.sse.com.cn/ http://www.china.cme.com/

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