Despite the huge volatility in the Hong Kong and China stock markets in June 2015, the TR/GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index dropped by only about 2 percent. For a recent white paper, we analysed the long-term performance of Asia Pacific REITs and have shown Asia Pacific REITs diversify risks from portfolios of Asian equities, global REITs and Australian REITs. This indicates an additional investment in standalone Asia Pacific REIT products potentially can increase long-term returns and lower return volatility in multiple sample portfolios.

Asia Pacific REITs were born in 2001, when the first REIT was listed in Japan. Since then, the number of REITs has grown to about 165, and the overall market capitalisation of Asia Pacific REITs rose from US$6 billion in 2000 to US$263 billion at the end of 2014. By market capitalisation, about one-third of these REITs are listed in Australia, one-third in Japan, and the remaining third in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.