S'pore blue chips take Asian dividend crown

SINGAPORE blue chips were the highest-yielding in Asia last month, but fell below the middle of the pack in terms of one-year total returns, said a report by index maintainer FTSE International.

The dividend yield for the FTSE Singapore index, which tracks 41 large- and mid-cap stocks listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), stood at 3.6 per cent as at Feb 28, highest among the 12 Asian indices in the series.

FTSE Thailand had the next highest yield of 3.56 per cent, while the lowest-yielding Asian country index was FTSE Korea, which yielded 1.19 per cent.