Islamic index on the cards

The Stock Exchange of Thailand is considering introducing

an Islamic Index as a reference for specific groups such as investors from the Middle East, including Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates, where the funds available for investment are worth about Bt700 billion.

The Islamic Index would be co-produced with FTSE International under the FTSE Group, one of the global players in the crea-

tion and management of indexes.

"The SET and FTSE will soon discuss this [Islamic Index] and will consider how tough or easy it would be. We'll also consider

what businesses would be qualified according to Isla-mic law," SET president Patareeya Benjapholchai said at the launch of the

FTSE SET Index Series yesterday.

The SET already plans to issue the FTSE Index Sector this year as a reference for 10 sectors of businesses listed on the local bourse.

As the SET has a database for the 10 sectors, launching the FTSE Index Sector will not be too complicated, she said.

The FTSE SET Index Series, tailored for the Thai capital market, consists of six separate indexes - large cap, mid cap, small cap, mid/small cap, all shares and fledgling - SET senior vice president Santi Kiranand said.

"The FTSE SET Large Cap Index, calculated every 15

seconds, is a tradable index that can be used as an underlying asset for financial products.

"All other FTSE SET in-dexes are calculated every 60 seconds and are benchmark indexes for portfolio management, measuring the performance of listed companies in the Thai stock market.

"The FTSE SET Index Series is fundamental in supporting transactions made on the Thai market," Santi added.

The product uses February 29, 2008 as its base date,

starting at 1,000 points. Index constituents will be reviewed every June and December by the index advisory committee.