Late reply, but this is something that I've wondered about in the past on this very forum as well. If you read a lot of general investment advice that comes out of experience in the US markets, the general consensus you should get is that most ordinary people should just buy index funds and forget about everything else. The rationale is that research has definitively demonstrated that over the long run, index funds in the aggregate outperform actively managed funds once you account for the higher costs associated with the managed funds. While it is possible for managed funds to beat the index, research has shown that it is not generally possible to predict in advance which particular managed fund will beat its benchmark index in any particular year. Research has also shown that the simple strategy of choosing the best performer of last year to invest in every year is a losing one.

However, I've come to realize that for many different reasons many of these things don't really apply to Malaysia. Some of these reasons include:

Folks,

What is your opinion on the new ETF offering from CIMB??

In general, it looks like ETF offering in Malaysia has lower cost than UT in Malaysia.

Dreamer

Further checking of the fees.... not so interesting anymore. 

CIMB FTSE ASEAN 40

1. Malaysian Management Fees : 0%
2. Malaysian Trustee Fees : 0.08%
3. Feeder Fund Management Fees : 0.65%
4. Feeder Fund Account Maintenance Fee : 0.3% (what?  )
5. Other Fees : Administrative and currency exchange loss

The fees will be about 1.03% before admin, so it will be about 1.2%~1.3% all in, not much discount from normal UT's. 

CIMB FTSE Xinhua China 25

1. Malaysian Management Fees : 0.6%
2. Malaysian Trustee Fees : 0.08%
3. License Fees : 0.04%
4. Other Fees : Administrative

The fess will be about 0.72% before admin so it will be about ~0.9%-1.0%. This fees is much more reasonable than the first ETF, but still consider high by international standards.

The only good thing is the total brokerage fees about 1% compared to sales charge of 5% here.