Dividends paid by companies in the Asia Pacific region excluding Japan rose nearly 16% in the twelve months ending July 2018.
The growth, which was recorded in the Henderson Far East Income Index, outpaced an estimated 5.5% rise in dividends from companies elsewhere in the globe in the same period, according to a statement by Janus Henderson Investors, which compiled the index.
Mike Kerley, a fund manager at the firm, said companies in the Asia Pacific had matured. “This development, in conjunction with ageing Asian populations increasingly looking to receive an income from their savings, is resulting in a more entrenched culture of dividend paying,” he said.
Companies in Taiwan and South Korea showed a particular appetite for raising dividends. In these countries, dividends rose by nearly 150% between 2013 and July of this year – nearly three times the average growth rate across the Asia Pacific region.
“The Asia Pacific region is an increasingly important source of the world’s equity income,” said the company's statement. “By 2017, companies there accounted for one pound in every six of the dividends paid worldwide, up from just over one in every nine in 2009.”
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