This two-year program is scheduled to begin October 1, 2005, and will provide fee waivers for new users of CME electronic markets in qualified regions around the world.

"Many of our products are seen as global benchmarks for risk management, and our goal is to ensure that CME products are available wherever there is demand," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy. "Because of our strong product lineup, we continue to see positive results from our global incentive programs for market participants in Europe and Asia, which so far this year has averaged up to 100,000 contracts per day. With the new Emerging Markets Partner Program, we believe we will continue to expand our reach and attract additional global participants to CME."

"As the leading global financial exchange, CME's diverse product line is attractive to investors around the world," said CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue. "With the dramatic growth of electronic trading, we have significantly increased the accessibility of our markets, extending the reach of our benchmark foreign exchange, interest rate and equity products. The Emerging Markets Partner Program allows us to focus on new and emerging marketplaces, such as China, India, South Africa, Poland, Russia and Israel, where we believe there is increasing opportunity to grow our business."

"We have cultivated very strong relationships with this particular segment of our user community over the past several years," said Arman Falsafi, CME Managing Director of Europe and Asia. "CME recognizes the significant costs, efforts and risks involved in establishing new operations in emerging financial centers, and we feel it is important that the exchange partner with our customers to continue to expand access to our products globally."

To participate in the program, eligible firms that have established new trading facilities with at least five traders in emerging marketplaces must dedicate a minimum of fifty percent of their new traders to trading CME products over the two year period. All participating traders must be new to derivatives trading and recruited locally in eligible locations.

The CME Emerging Markets Partner Program is the fourth incentive program the exchange has created designed specifically to attract non-U.S. customers to its markets. In addition to this program, CME also offers an Electronic Corporate Membership program, European Incentive Program and an Asian Incentive Program.