The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) said that it has achieved about 930,000 contracts valued at Dh176.5 billion ($48 billion), for the first eight months of 2008, which exceeds the total volume for 2007, a report said.

This year's volume growth went up 54 per cent, compared to last year, according to the Gulf News report.

This year's eight months saw gold futures climb 34 per cent while gold options jumped 272 per cent and euro futures surged 241 per cent to 90,000 contracts.

Malcolm Wall Morris, chief of DGCX opined that the robust growth was due to a rise in flow of funds into derivatives.

'Volumes on DGCX have gathered momentum in 2008 due to our diversified product offering and more market participants adopting derivative products in their portfolios. DGCX crude oil contracts, launched just three months ago, account for 10 per cent of year-to-date volumes,' he added.