The strong demand for commodities and their subsequent rising prices have led to a natural resource boom globally, which provides windfall gains to producing and exporting countries and their exchange traded funds (ETFs), experts say. For Malaysia, major non-fuel commodity exports such as palm oil, timber, saw logs, rubber and tin accounted for 6.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 compared with 5.2% in 2000, reports Elaine Ang for The Malaysia Star. Including crude oil and natural gas, the ratio to GDP rose to 15.9% in 2006 from 12.4% in 2000. This could be one of the reasons why Malaysia’s ETF iShares MSCI Malaysia Index (EWM) has been doing so well. Currently, it’s up 32.7% year-to-date with about $852 million in assets.

Malaysia is predicted to expand by 6% in 2008, and there’s a 5-year government plan in place to move the economy forward, particularly by spending on education, manufacturing, technology and agriculture.

Tags: Commodity ETFs, Malaysia, Natural Gas