Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) and Gulf Mercantile Exchange (GME) have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen communication and promote pragmatic cooperation between the two commodity derivatives markets.

Headquartered in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), GME — formerly known as the Dubai Mercantile Exchange — is an important commodity futures exchange in the Middle East. Under the MoU, SHFE and GME will explore opportunities for deeper cooperation in areas including product development, knowledge sharing, market research, personnel exchange, and market education and promotion. The partnership aims to enhance mutual understanding and learning, and offer investors from both markets more diversified risk management tools.

An executive from SHFE expressed the interest in strengthening commodity derivatives market cooperation with GME to jointly provide market participants with more efficient price discovery and risk management tools, against the backdrop of increasingly close trade ties between China and the United Arab Emirates, an important participant of the Belt and Road Initiative.