Van Eck Launches Egypt ETF
February 18, 2010

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – Van Eck Global today added the Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF (NYSEArca: EGPT) to its fund lineup. 

"The Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF addresses a growing interest in using individual country funds to calibrate international equity allocations, particularly on the part of investors dissatisfied with existing indices," said Jan van Eck, Principal at Van Eck Global. "These funds serve as targeted tools for overweighting or underweighting specific geographies and economies.”

EGPT’s underlying index tracks the performance of companies that are domiciled and primarily listed in Egypt, or that generate a majority of their revenues in the country. At the end of January, the Egypt Index included 28 stocks and the top three index holdings were Commercial International Bank (8.5%), Orascom Construction Industries (8.4%) and Orascom Telecom Holding SAE (7.9%). EGPT is heavily tilted toward companies in the financial, industrial, material and telecom sectors.

Egypt's real economic growth has averaged 4.9 percent annually since the start of the last decade and 6.3 percent for the three years ending December 31, 2009. Egypt's move to a more open, market-oriented economy has, in turn, led to expanding foreign investment, net exports, industrial development, and business formation. Egypt is the most populous Arab country and the third most populous country in Africa.

The index uses a market-capitalization weighting methodology, and is float-adjusted and modified so that the weight of any single component does not account for more than 8.0 percent of the total capitalization at a rebalancing date. It is denominated in U.S. dollars and reviewed quarterly.

Van Eck manages other country-focused ETFs like the Africa ETF (NYSEArca: AFK), Brazil Small-Cap ETF (NYSEArca: BRF), Poland ETF (NYSEArca: PLND), Russia ETF (NYSEArca: RSX) and the Vietnam ETF (NYSEArca: VNM). The New York-based company manages around $12 billion in ETF assets.

Other New ETF Offerings
Emerging Global Advisors (EGA) has just debuted the China Infrastructure Index Fund (NYSEArca: CHXX). The fund is comprised of 30 Chinese infrastructure stocks and has annual expenses of 0.85%.

EGA is planning more ETFs with a similar investment theme, including infrastructure funds that follow stocks in Asia, Brazil and India. At the end of January, the company had $61 million under management.