Singapore Exchange (S68.SG) said Tuesday its new board, GlobalQuote, will begin operations on Oct 22 with the American depositary receipts of 19 major Asian companies, in the latest attempt by the bourse to boost trading volumes and liquidity.

The Singapore Exchange is aggressively pursuing opportunities to become an Asian Gateway for international issures and investors as bourses around the region compete to list blue chips on their respective exchanges.

GlobalQuote, which SGX has set up in collaboration with NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ), will offer price quotes of international securities such as depositary receipts and depositary shares of companies that are already listed on other exchanges.

The companies on GlobalQuote will include Baidu Inc. (BIDU), Aluminium Corp. of China, or Chinalco (ACH), and telecom majors such as China Mobile (CHL), China Telecom Corp. (CHA) and China Unicom Hong Kong (0762.HK).

SGX said companies such as Baidu and Suntech Power Holdings (STP) don’t have Asian home exchanges and the ADRs quoted on the SGX will allow investors to trade the securities, which are fully fungible with the US-listed ADRs, during the Asian trading day.

“Our ADR offering gives customers new opportunities to act quickly on information and news-flow on major Asian companies. We will continue to add to our suite of securities on GlobalQuote through our work with NASDAQ OMX,” Magnus Bocker, Singapore Exchange’s chief executive said.

GlobalQuote will also include the ADRs of companies such as China Eastern Airlines (0670.HK), China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (0386.HK) or Sinopec and Netease.com Inc. (NETS).

“We also believe it will add significant value to our US-listed companies in Asia who can increase their exposure amongst the Asian-Pacific investor community by giving them access to local companies within local trading hours,” Bob Greifeld, Chief Executive of NASDAQ OMX said.