Kuala Lumpur – Thomson Reuters today announced the launch of its Islamic Asia Pacific Ex-Japan Islamic Agribusiness Index, covering 30 Shariah compliant companies in the Asia Pacific region with revenues derived directly from agricultural products. It is the first index of its kind in the Asia Pacific region.

The Thomson Reuters Islamic Asia Pacific Ex-Japan Agribusiness Index combines Thomson Reuters transparent rules-based methodology with IdealRatings' expertise and research-based approach to Shariah-compliant screening.

In addition, the index uses Thomson Reuters Business Classification (TRBC) to select companies engaged in upstream agricultural activities. TRBC has five levels of classification enabling a more accurate and granular selection of companies. This allows Thomson Reuters to systematically include industries and business activities which derive revenue from agricultural produce such as dairy producers or fertilizer while excluding activities related to agricultural product manufacturing which are not considered to be part of the agribusiness sector.

Thomson Reuters has been at the heart of Islamic finance for over 30 years, offering innovative Shariah compliant investment and trading solutions for financial professionals. With extensive experience in building, maintaining and distributing indices spanning multiple asset classes and specialties, index partners and clients have come to rely on Thomson Reuters for its unrivalled data and content sets, helping investors to make better decisions faster.

“Thomson Reuters is delighted to add the Islamic Asia Pacific Ex-Japan Agribusiness Index to our suite of Islamic indices,” said Stephan Flagel, Head of Indices at Thomson Reuters. “The index provides rules-based, liquid and transparent exposure to companies within the fast growing Asian Agribusiness sector. Bringing the efficiency and transparency expected in advanced financial markets to the rapidly growing Islamic finance industry requires the provision of deep and reliable market indicators, benchmarks and terms and conditions”

The index will be tracked by an exchange-traded fund (ETF) provided by i-VCAP Management Sdn Bhd which has launched on the same day and is named MyETF Thomson Reuters Asia Pacific ex-Japan Islamic Agribusiness. The newly-launched ETF will offer investors exposure to the performance of the index and is the first agricultural-related Islamic ETF available globally and the first Islamic sector ETF available in the region, adding to ETFs worth $2bn USD based on Thomson Reuters indices globally.

The Thomson Reuters Islamic Asia Pacific Ex-Japan Agribusiness Index is calculated in real time and will be available through Thomson Reuters Eikon. For more information about Thomson Reuters Eikon, go to http://financial.tr.com/eikon. Thomson Reuters is a trusted, global provider of indices and index services, calculating over 10,000 different equity, fixed income, and commodity indices.

Thomson Reuters provides innovative indices and index-related services to the global financial community to help investors make better decisions. Thomson Reuters index clients and partners rely upon Thomson Reuters premier global network and vast data and content sets. Backed by the content, data, independence and global information network of Thomson Reuters, its indices and index services are designed to suit clients’ need. For more information please go to http://financial.thomsonreuters.com/indices

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