DJ FOREX, announces strong uptake at official launch in Moscow

MOSCOW, May 19 (Prime-Tass) -- Dow Jones Newswires and Prime-Tass, Russia's leading business-news agency, today officially unveiled DJ FOREX, the first Russian-language news service to focus on the foreign-exchange markets.

The service, which is targeted at Russians actively trading in currencies, already has met with widespread interest since it was first introduced to the Russian financial marketplace this past February.

During the past three months, about 12 Russian banks and brokerages have signed up for the service, while hundreds of individuals now have access to the wire through their brokerage accounts.

"The initial few months of the DJ FOREX operation have shown that there is a huge, unsatisfied demand for quality foreign-exchange news in the Russian market," said Oleg Ananyev, chief executive of Prime-Tass, at today's official launch in Moscow. "We believe that this demand will keep increasing as Russia moves ahead toward the full conversion of the ruble planned for 2007 and that DJ FOREX is well positioned to meet this demand."

"We're delighted with the early response to this joint product as it shows there is demand for our premium coverage of the global foreign-exchange markets," said Michael Bergmeijer, vice president, international sales and marketing, Dow Jones Newswires. "We're very pleased to have extended our commercial partnership with Prime-Tass to the area of joint product development."

DJ FOREX runs from 0700-2300 local Moscow time (GMT+3), Monday to Friday and publishes approximately 200 items daily. Content is drawn from Dow Jones Newswires' coverage of trading in the U.S. dollar, yen, euro and sterling sectors, as well as reporting of economic data and monetary policies that drive price movements. The content is translated into Russian by Prime-Tass editors and quality is monitored by Dow Jones Newswires.

The service is available via the Prime-Tass Web site (www.prime-tass.ru), as well as via Internet feeds. Distribution through Dow Jones Newswires' global-vendor partnerships is expected to follow.

DJ FOREX is the first product of a collaboration agreement with Prime-Tass, which was signed in January 2004. Dow Jones Newswires also has sales-agency and news-exchange agreements with Prime-Tass, and other targeted joint products are in the pipeline.