OREANDA-NEWS. On 14 July 2008 was announced, that by the unanimous vote of the FIA board of directors OJSC RTS was granted associated membership in the Futures Industry Association.

FIA was founded in 1955 in New York. Today FIA represents more than 250 members which makes it the world's largest professional association of derivatives exchanges.

According to first quarter 2008 statistics, FORTS, RTS derivatives section, was ranked 16 in the FIA’s top 30 trading volume leaders published in the Futures Industry Magazine. RTS is the first Russian exchange to be rated by an independent international agency.

"Russian Trading System" Stock Exchange was established in 1995. In 2007 the total trading volume on RTS Group markets grew almost sixfold and hit a record high of US\\\\$687.4 bln . Over 2200 stocks are represented on RTS, over 400 of them are admitted to trading on the RTS markets. Almost 500 securities are admitted to trading on RTS (stocks, corporate bonds, municipal and federal bonds, eurobonds, fund units) from 340 issuers. RTS takes the leading position by the number of stocks included in the Quotation lists - over 100 stocks.

FORTS, the derivatives market of RTS, is a leading trading venue for futures and options in Russia. Trading on FORTS started in September 2001. At present FORTS has the widest range of instruments in Russia. These are 64 contracts (46 futures and 18 options) on shares of Russian companies, bonds, short term interest rates, currency, RTS Index, oil, silver, gas oil, sugar and gold. Trading volume on FORTS in 2007 grew threefold to reach US\\\\$ 297.41 bln or 144.9 million contracts .