Chinese exchanges are wooing international commodities traders in a bid to overtake longstanding benchmark prices — many of which are set in Europe and the U.S. — reflecting ambitious plans by the world's second-largest economy to expand its influence overseas.

In the last few months, Chinese exchanges have opened up the trading of derivatives products for a few major commodities to international participants.

Those include crude oil futures on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange, iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange and palm olein futures on the Asia Pacific Exchange (APEX), the last being a new largely Chinese-backed exchange based in Singapore. Palm olein is a widely traded palm oil compound used in cooking and baking.

"Right now, China's market is more like a domestic market. We are [now] going out to internationalize China's futures market," said Eugene Zhu, CEO of APEX. ( News from CNBC)