Asian ETF market lurches forward

The exchange-traded funds market in Asia-Pacific stalled after making a promising start. But that’s all changing with a 25% increase in the number of products recorded in the first few months of this year. Richard Jory reports from the Art of Indexing & ETF Summit in Singapore

The creation of 50 new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Asia in the first four months of 2011 has taken the total for the region to 250. That figure is far behind the 1,128 in Europe and the 972 that existed in the US as of March 31 this year, according to iShares, but the pace of the increase is remarkable. “In each market, it has taken a while for ETFs to get off the ground,” said Reid Steadman, global head of ETF licensing at S&P Indices, at the Art of Indexing & ETF Investment Asia Summit