Dow Jones Islamic Market ASEAN Index launched.

Summary: Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today launched the Dow Jones Islamic Market (DJIM) ASEAN Index.

Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today launched the Dow Jones Islamic Market (DJIM) ASEAN Index.

The DJIM ASEAN Index is the first index to represent the performance of Shari'ah-compliant companies in six of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The index currently includes Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The DJIM ASEAN Index is designed to serve as underlying for financial products such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or as a benchmark for actively managed mutual funds. The index has been licensed to Malaysia-based Corston-Smith Asset Management to be used as the basis for a long-only corporate governance investment fund.

"ASEAN member countries are among the fastest emerging economies in Asia. The Dow Jones Islamic Market ASEAN Index now enables market participants to track Shari'ah-compliant stocks across the Southeast Asian region," said Mike A. Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes. "The index further broadens the geographical coverage of the well-sought-after Dow Jones Islamic Market index series which follows a unique methodology and has set the standard for Islamic indexing in the past decade."

Shireen Muhiudeen, principal fund manager, Corston-Smith Asset Management said, "With the growing demand for Shari'ah-compliant investments, it was only natural for us to offer the first ASEAN Shariah Corporate Governance Fund. By using the Dow Jones Islamic Market ASEAN Index as a basis, we ensure meeting core Shari'ah ethical principles."

The DJIM ASEAN Index is weighted by free-float market capitalization. As of November 12, 2008, the index consists of 284 components; the top five components by float-adjusted market capitalization are PTT PCL (Thailand, Oil & Gas), Sime Darby (Malaysia, Industrial Goods & Services), Singapore Airlines (Singapore, Travel & Leisure), Singapore Telecommunications (Singapore, Telecommunications) and Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Indonesia, Telecommunications).

As of November 12, 2008, the DJIM ASEAN Total Return Index dropped -10.58% from its base date of December 31, 1995.1 The DJIM ASEAN Index is calculated in U.S. dollar. It is reviewed quarterly in March, June, September and December.

Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes seek to measure the global universe of investable equities that pass screens for Shari'ah compliance. The Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes combine Islamic investment principles with Dow Jones Indexes' objective, transparent and rules-based methodology.

The index family includes more than 90 regional, country and industry indexes derived from the flagship Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index. In 2006 the index family expanded to include the Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index, which combines Islamic investing principles with sustainability criteria, the Dow Jones Citigroup Sukuk Index, the first index to track Islamic bonds and Dow Jones Islamic Market BRIC Equal Weighted Index, which tracks Shari'ah compliant stocks in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Islamic indexes for Sri Lanka, Dubai blue-chips, Hong Kong listed Chinese stocks, India and Malaysian blue-chips were launched within the last year.

There are currently more than 75 licensees with more than US$7 billion in assets benchmarked to the Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes.

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