In light of the emerging markets’ strong performance in recent years, ING Securities Investment & Trust Co (安泰證券投資信託) yesterday launched its emerging markets umbrella fund, with three sub-funds investing in South Korea, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.
The three sub-funds are the nation’s first New Taiwan dollar-denominated onshore fund investments in those regions, the company said in a statement.
The company said it was upbeat on the South Korean market, which has made efforts to decrease its reliance on the US market while increasing exports to Asia and emerging markets.
Thus, the US economic slowdown would have a limited impact on the South Korean economy, it said.
ING said now was a good time to invest in South Korean and Thai shares, which have the lowest price-earnings ratio (PER) in Asia.
“As the US subprime crisis is expected to come to an end, ING is upbeat about South Korea’s performance in the second half of this year,” James Liu (劉益銘), chief of overseas investment at ING’s investment division, said yesterday.
ING believed shares in emerging markets, such as Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which are rich in natural resources, are good investment destinations in the face of rising international crude oil and commodity prices.
Furthermore, Russia’s recent announcement that it would lower the threshold on crude oil levies, plus the freeze on natural gas tax rate before 2010, could help lower operating costs and raise profits for industries dependent on oil.
“ING believes Russia and the Middle East will benefit from rising commodity prices, while South Korea, like Taiwan, may soon see an economic turnaround,” Steven Billiet, chief executive officer of ING Securities Investment & Trust, said yesterday.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last