MANILA, Philippines?Malaysian Real estate investment trust (REIT) manager Axis REIT Managers Berhad is scouting for investment opportunities in the Philippines, which recently opened up its capital market to this kind debt instrument.

Axis chief executive officer Stewart LaBrooy is arriving in Manila to speak at the REIT Asia Pacific Philippines Summit 2010 to be held on July 27 to 28, the Malaysian company announced in a statement.

REIT is an instrument which allows investors to invest in finished real estate developments such as residential, office, hotels and shopping malls or even in infrastructure projects such as toll roads and power plants.

In the Philippines, the REIT law requires the distribution of 90 percent of a particular project?s income yearly to REIT holders. This means investors can look forward to earning from dividends declared on top of potential stock price appreciation.

?The Asian REIT market has made a dramatic recovery to their pre-crisis levels, outperforming both the equity markets and their peers in the West,? LaBrooy said in a statement ahead of his visit.

?The conservative leverage levels had led to a renewed interest in the sector in the light of the very highly volatile global markets which were finding it difficult to shake off the effects of the global financial crisis,? he said.

LaBrooy said Asia had witnessed over the past year one large successful REIT listing in Singapore and two in Malaysia with total asset value of $2.25 billion. He said the two Malaysian REITs had injected much needed liquidity in the Malaysian REIT market and effectively doubled the size of assets listed to more than $3 billion.

?With REIT regulations now in place and the high quality assets available in the Philippines, we sincerely hope that we will witness a further extension of the success story of listed Asian

REITs,? said LaBrooy.

The Real Estate Investment Trust Act was signed into law as the fourth landmark legislative reform proposed by the PSE to boost the local capital market. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued the implementing rules and guidelines on the REIT while the Philippine Stock Exchange has also drawn up the listing guidelines.