The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) has cut two deals to boost electronic trading and market-making on the Gulf commodities and currency market.

DGCX said on Tuesday it has reached an agreement with high-frequency trading tech firm Avelacom to provide existing and potential new members with hosting and co-location solutions.

The partnership will leverage Avelacom’s new trading hub in Dubai that provides milli-second connections to the world’s top trading centres such as Singapore, London and Chicago.

Gaurang Desai, the chief executive of DGCX, said: “Our partnership with Avelacom continues to endorse our commitment to offer our members global access to the world’s leading trading technology solutions.”

Aleksey Larichev, a managing director at Avelacom, added: “We intend to service the requirements of our existing client base as well as win new business in the Middle East because of rising demand for low latency connectivity and infrastructure solutions for trading.

The DGCX pact with Avelacom emerged less than a day after the Dubai market said ABN Amro Clearing, one of the world’s top futures and options clearing houses for prop traders and market-makers, had become a special clearing member in its clearing house Dubai Commodities Clearing Corporation.

Desai said: “ABN Amro is a global leader in clearing services and its addition to the DGCX community further demonstrates our ability to offer a platform for international banks to expand and build their global footprint in this region.”

Martin Frewer, global director, principal trading group, at ABN, added: “Our broad client base of liquidity providers will now be able to take advantage of our correlated risk tools for optimising collateral in a new jurisdictions and be able to bring the DGCX’s suite of products into their global portfolios.”

DGCX has seen its volumes spike this year with year-to-date volumes until the end of August up 43% to almost 13 million contracts, according to Euromoney TradeData.

Its Indian Rupee currency and gold contract are its top performing products in 2016, according to TradeData.