11 heavyweight Indian firms have been included in the reputed international index provider Standard and Poor's (S and P) new fully-investable S and P Pan Asia Shariah Index, national daily The Hindu reported Thursday.

The S and P Pan Asia Shariah Index has been launched with 71 companies with an adjusted market capitalization of 810.83 billion U.S. dollars.

The newspaper reported that the new index draws stocks from nine Asian markets in the S and P Citigroup Global Equity Index and will enable Islamic investors to benchmark their investment on a regional basis.

It will also give providers the opportunity to develop structured products tailored to Islamic market.

Apart from 11 Indian firms, it has firms from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.

Information technology (IT) firms represent approximately 35 percent of the index followed by telecom services at 17 percent and energy at 15 percent.

Indian firms include Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd., Bharti Televentures Ltd., Infosys Technologies and reliance Industries among others.

Source: Xinhua