Results Of FTSE Country Classification Consultation Announced

• No changes to country status to take effect in 2004
• Shadow indices to be introduced in March 2005

The results of FTSE's public consultation on the treatment of countries within global benchmarks have been announced. The consultation, conducted in December 2003, has revealed widespread support for the proposal for a more transparent, objective and consistent treatment of countries being assigned as developed or emerging markets.

FTSE will use economic wealth and quality of markets as its two main measures to assess the status of markets in its global indices. Over 100 investment organisations from 30 countries responded to the paper, expressing support for this approach.

There are four main areas of output from the consultation results:

• FTSE has published a provisional Watch List of possible changes to country classification within the FTSE Global Equity Index Series
• FTSE has published a provisional assessment of the quality of markets for all developed and emerging markets
• FTSE will conduct a review of all emerging markets in September 2004 at which point, countries will be assigned to an Advanced Emerging or Secondary Emerging category within the emerging market segment
• New shadow indices for Asia and emerging markets will be introduced in March 2005

Details of the results, outputs and implementation road map are available from www.ftse.com/country