Contributors to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) should not compare the dividends announced for 2019 with those paid out 10 years ago, said its chief.

Tunku Alizakri Alias (above) said the environment was different then, so it is rather unfair to make the comparisons.

“Last year there was the trade war, Brexit and (demonstrations in) Hong Kong. This year, there is the Covid-19,” he told TV3 today.

EPF today declared a dividend of 5.45 per cent for Simpanan Konvensional and 5.0 per cent for Simpanan Shariah, which involves a payout of RM41.68 billion and RM4.14 billion, respectively.

Actually, he said, in terms of stock market performance, EPF had earned higher returns than other equity fund managers.

"Due consideration must be given compared to how we performed against our peers in terms of asset class, quality assets, stocks, as well as their median performance last year, they earned a three per cent return [...] our EPF earned more than seven per cent [...] from that perspective, EPF has done its best,” he said.

EPF expects 2020 to be a more challenging period with Covid-19 possibly causing a slowdown in global economic growth.

Tunku Alizakri said the US-China trade war, which has not shown any signs of abating, is among the risks in the recovery of other economies.

"This is long-term, the sort of response also can’t be knee-jerk, if something goes wrong we can't just pull back or just come in.

"We take measures, approaches, we do our studies correctly, we need to be conservative because this is a retirement fund.

“This is not something we can gamble on; some people say why don't we go for higher risks [...] we cannot do that, because we are retirement money, we make sure the funds are ready when our members retire," he said.

In a previous statement, Alizakri assured EPF’s 14.6 million members, including five generations of Malaysian workers, that it was aware of the growing pressure in recent decades. - Bernama