The markets in the Asia Pacific region exhibit high rates of economic growth and cover almost half of the global population, which makes it an attractive market for electronic trading.

In a report, Electronic Trading in Asia-Pacific: A Market by Market Update on the Dynamic Region, Celent compares the present levels of electronic trading and the possibility of having high frequency trading in equity markets in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan.

While the overall Asian market is quite diverse, there has been a move towards greater efficiency.

The result is that they are creating the infrastructure to improve levels of electronic trading.

"Asia is a very exciting market for electronic trading of cash equity and derivatives," says Anshuman Jaswal, Celent senior analyst and author of the report. "While the level of development of each market differs, the leading exchanges in Japan, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India should set the tone, with faster matching engines, enhanced market data, and co-location services."

With a high proportion of its domestic buy side beginning to use algorithmic trading, Hong Kong is best poised to grow in the region. It is followed by Singapore, where the regulatory environment is very conducive to algo trading.

Similarly, Japan, and Australia are expected to have higher algo trading in coming years.

India has been a slow starter but is rapidly catching up with some of its counterparts and is expected to have algo trading levels of around 30 per cent by 2012.