According to the China Mining Association, “China’s futures transactions in 2008 hit a record high of 71 trillion yuan, including 1.49 trillion yuan for the newly listed gold futures contracts.” Based on recent exchange rate that’s $217.9 billion U.S.

According to the statistics, 2008 saw “1.36 billion lots traded with an accumulated value of 71.9 trillion yuan [$10.5 trillion] on China’s three futures exchanges, up 87 percent and 76 percent on year respectively.”

The association notes, “in December alone, 160 million futures contracts changed hands, with a total transaction value of 6.2 trillion yuan [$907.09 billion U.S.], up 82 percent and 19 percent on year respectively, and up 15 percent and 13 percent on month respectively.”