I thought someone with an Asian name and background would be running the HKMEx. Silly me. It's an American, of course.

Albert Helmig was appointed president of the HKMEx in March 2009. Educated, trained, conditioned, experienced, networked, etc., all in the good old USA. I'm surprised I couldn't find a connection to Goldman or JPMorgue, though there are plenty of lines in the data to read between.

Though Morgan Stanley is one of the members of the exchange, it's hard to say who the principal backers are of the other 18 or so members. Just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised to find the hands of some US financials in there somewhere.

The banksters have certainly known about all this for a long time, probably participated in one form or another in getting it operational and have probably positioned themselves accordingly to make some big bucks, especially when they have one of Wall Street's own running the show. All in my jaded opinion, of course.

Last May the HKMEx started trading the 1-kilo gold futures contract in US dollars with physical delivery in Hong Kong, and though that may have contributed to the advancing gold price, as lots of guns thought it would, it hasn't catapulted it to the moon, as some thought it would. However with the added silver contract, we might see some real excitement, but I'm not holding my breath.

------------------

Albert HELMIG

President
Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx)

Mr Helmig leads the day-to-day operation of the Exchange. Together with an international pool of talented professionals, he works to build Asia’s Exchange in one of the region's most prominent financial hub, Hong Kong.

Mr Helmig is the third generation of his family to work in the commodity trading industry. He has more than 35 years of commodities experience from Wall Street to commodity merchant spanning both physical commodities and financial instruments on a global basis. He is a former Vice Chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange; he served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee for 10 years and was Chairman or Vice Chairman of over 20 committees. Mr Helmig was Founder and Chief Executive of Grey House LLC, a private consulting firm on risk management, price models and industry best practices to clients such as financial institutions, producers, integrated energy companies, government agencies and ministries, think tanks and law firms. He is a frequent contributor at industry forums and to the media. He serves on the Advisory Board of Energy Intelligence Group as well as other corporate boards.

Mr Helmig holds degrees in Finance and Economics from Philadelphia University.

Past

• CEO at Grey House
• member at National Committee US China Relations
• Vice Chairman, Board of Directors, Executive Ctm. at New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)
• Board Memeber at International Precious Metals Institute

• Principle at The Helmig Corp/Energex
• International Commodity Specialist at Prudential Bache
• Head of Trading and Risk Management- CFO. at Helmig & Co. Inc.
• Commodity and FX Broker at Merrill Lynch

Members of the Exchange

Jinrui Futures and Wing Fung Futures join 18 previously-announced members, including 15 broking members. The broking members are: BOCI Securities Ltd, Celestial Commodities Ltd, CES Capital International Co. Ltd, Chief Commodities Ltd, GF Futures (Hong Kong) Co., Limited, ICBC International Futures Ltd, Interactive Brokers LLC, KGI Futures (Hong Kong) Ltd, MF Global Hong Kong Ltd, Morgan Stanley Hong Kong Securities Ltd, Nanhua Futures (Hong Kong) Co., Limited, OSK Futures Hong Kong Ltd, Phillip Commodities (HK) Ltd, Tanrich Futures Ltd and TG Securities Ltd. The three clearing members are: Interactive Brokers (UK) Ltd, MF Global UK Ltd, and Morgan Stanley & Co International Plc.