For any emerging market mining or natural resources company thinking of listing on a stock exchange, the choices have just got more interesting.

The London Stock Exchange and TMX Group , operator of Canada’s stock exchange, have agreed a merger that creates the world’s largest platform for mining and natural resources company listings.

Canada already had the largest platform, which includes its successful TSX Ventures Exchange, a junior board not unlike the LSE’s Aim market. Adding London’s 170-plus mining and resources listings makes the two players the global leader.

Xavier Rolet, LSE chief executive who will retain that post at the head of the combined group, told a conference call: “We do feel this will make us a strong competitor in an environment when global emerging market companies have a choice where to list.”

The two exchanges are also punting their ability sell trading technology to emerging exchanges. Currently that business is dominated by Nasdaq OMX, NYSE Technologies – the tech arm of NYSE Euronext – and other specialist providers like Patsystems, a UK-listed company that recently signed a deal to provide a trading system to a new commodity exchange in Vietnam.

The nagging question is: where are all these new mining and natural resource listings going to come from? It all depends on your view of the commodity super-cycle.

Rolet told me a short while ago – citing Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist – that the cycle had “just started” and “we are just starting to scratch the surface”.

He certainly backs up his words with action. Only last month the LSE agreed a co-operation deal with the stock exchange in Mongolia, the next natural resources and mining hotspot.

Yet there are others who take a less sanguine view on emerging markets and commodities trajectory. In the end, the success of exchange merger may pivot on who is right.

Related reading:
Quick View: Why the LSE and TMX are getting together, FT Trading Room