CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, announced this week the official opening of a new office in Sydney, Australia.

Located in Sydney's Central Business District, the new office affirms the company's commitment to growth in the Asia Pacific and comes at a time when CME's business in the region continues to experience healthy growth. CME's second-quarter 2017 average daily volume from the Asia Pacific stood at 637,000 contracts, up 5% compared to the second quarter of 2016, largely driven by growth across volumes in interest rates (24%), foreign exchange (22%) and metals (14%) products.

"Continuing our international expansion is key to servicing the needs of our clients, and having a foothold in Sydney puts us in a better position to support market participants in Australia," said Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and chief executive officer. "Australia is a key international financial center and commodity hub, and our office here will enable us to deliver our ever-expanding range of risk management solutions to our growing key client segments across asset managers, banking, commercials, hedge funds and proprietary trading."

Christopher Fix, managing director and head of Asia Pacific, added that "2017 is an exciting time for CME Group in Asia Pacific as we celebrate 30 years since we set up our first office in the Asia Pacific region in Tokyo (Japan) back in 1987. Australia is central to CME Group's growth plans, being in the top five contributors of our revenues in the region, and we are excited to be able to bring our expertise and products here to help our clients with their risk management needs, especially in the areas of OTC (over-the-counter) clearing and trade repository services."

With the latest office opening in Sydney, CME now has Asia Pacific offices across seven locations, including Bangalore; Beijing, China; Hong Kong; Seoul, South Korea; Singapore, and Tokyo. CME currently has about 300 employees in the Asia Pacific across various roles, including business development, clearing, customer service, marketing, market operations, quantitative engineering, sales and technology.