London - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced plans to launch the Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index.  The index will track investor perceptions of the credit risk of a range of countries in the Asia Pacific region and will start trading in early May 2010.

The index, which forms part of the Markit iTraxx SovX family of credit default swap (CDS) indices, will be a useful barometer of the sovereign CDS markets in the Asia Pacific region.  It will also provide market participants with a standardised tool to hedge their exposure to the risk of the ten countries with the most liquid sovereign CDS in the region. The initial series of the Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will include the following constituents:

• Australia
• China
• Indonesia
• Japan
• Korea
• Malaysia
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Thailand
• Vietnam

The Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific index will start trading as Version 1 of Series 3 for consistency with other Markit iTraxx SovX indices.  More than ten market makers, including international and local financial institutions, are expected to provide liquidity for this index.

Markit will continue to apply its objective, rules-based approach to index construction and publish index rules and daily closing prices on www.markit.com.

About Markit iTraxx SovX
The Markit iTraxx SovX family of indices comprise of the following:

• Markit iTraxx SovX Asia Pacific – tracking the credit risk of ten countries in the Asia Pacific region.
• Markit iTraxx SovX CEEMEA – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in the CEEMEA region.
• Markit iTraxx SovX G7 – tracking the credit risk of the most industrialised countries in the world.
• Markit iTraxx SovX Global Liquid IG – tracking the credit risk of countries in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, North America and Western Europe.
• Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe – tracking the credit risk of 15 countries in Western Europe.