The Latin American exchange-traded fund industry had assets of USD9.84bn at the end of December 2009, a rise of 79 per cent year-to-date, according to a report by BlackRock.

This is less than the 98.1 per cent rise in the MSCI EM Latin America Index in US dollar terms.

The industry has 17 locally domiciled ETFs and 211 exchange listings.
YTD the number of ETFs has increased by 70 per cent with seven new ETFs launched.

iShares is the largest ETF provider in terms of assets with USD8.37bn under management in 15 ETFs, reflecting 85.1 per cent market share; Banco Itau is second with USD1.47bn in one locally domiciled ETF and a 14.9 per cent market share at the end of December 2009.

YTD the average daily trading volume in US dollars has increased by 72.9 per cent to USD222.8m.

There are 169 ETFs cross-listed in Mexico at the end of December 2009 from eight providers, while there are 340 ETFs registered for sale in Chile from ten providers and 277 ETFs registered for sale in Peru from 12 providers.

The first ETF to launch in Latin America was the Naftrac, designed to track the Mexican Bolsa Index. Since launching in 2002 by Nacional Financiera it became the largest ETF in the region with over USD6bn in assets under management at the end of December 2009. It was acquired by iShares on 14 May 2009.