INTERVIEW-Dubai gold exchange snubs merger mania

By Summer Said

DUBAI, July 3 (Reuters) - The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) will avoid the merger mania of other commodity exchanges and focus on its own organic growth, the bourse's chief executive said on Thursday.

The DGCX is the major commodities centre in the region. It is one of the few independent exchanges left after a wave of consolidation in recent years.

"Our objective is to further enhance our liquidity and continue to meet the needs of the market whilst diversifying our portfolio," Malcolm Wall Morris told Reuters in an interview.

"We are not in talks with the Dubai Mercantile Exchange or any another exchange about a merger."

In March, the CME Group Inc CME.N, the world's largest derivatives exchange, forged a definitive agreement to buy the energy and precious metals New York Mercantile Exchange (NMX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) for about $9.4 billion.

In 2007 turnover at the bourse was over 910,000 contracts with a total value of more than $34 billion. It reached 137,000 contracts valued at about $9.2 billion in June.

In May, the bourse listed two cash-settled light sweet crude oil contracts -- Dubai West Texas Intermediate crude DWTIc1 and Dubai Brent crude DBRCc1 -- in the world's top oil exporting region to allow funds in the region to invest in oil futures without taking money elsewhere.

"Our new crude futures contracts proved to be successful and during their first full month of trading accounted for 27 percent of the exchange's volume," Wall Morris said.