Malaysian REITs Set to Grow

Recently, reported in The Star (11/10/06), Aseambankers have forwarded some interesting statistics on REIT in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong which are briefly described as follows:

• Malaysia’s five real estate investment trusts (REITs) have a market capitalisation of about US$550million with an average yield of 7.33%;

• Singapore which 13 Reits which has a market capitalization worth of about US$13bil with an average yield of 4.96%;

• Hong Kongwith 5 Reits with market capitalization worth about US$6.5bil with average yield of 5.2%

• From the Malaysian investor’s perspective, Malaysian Reit still fare better than Singapore and other countries even though Singapore’s tax rate and other countries’ tax rate are lower than Malaysia. This is due to the yield perspective where Malaysia’s yield is on average about 7.3%, while Singapore’s is roughly about 5%. So even if we look at net returns after tax, 7.3% after 20% and 5% after 10%.