The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is expected to announce a dividend of between 6.35 percent and 6.45 percent for 2014, according to sources.

The dividend last year was 6.35 percent. A dividend more than 6.35 percent would make it the highest since 1999 , where the dividend was 6.84 percent.

Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) president N Marimuthu said an increase in dividend would help boost savings for retirement.

“This will give some sense of a more positive feeling in these times of economic uncertainty and increasing costs of living.”

Meanwhile, Fomca’s CEO Paul Raj hoped that with the EPF performing better this year, the dividend would be 6.45 percent or higher.

“This would be better for more than 10 million contributors who put their savings in EPF. As the economy is not doing too well it would be a step in the right direction to have a higher dividend.”

Talk among contributors and some of the fund employees was that EPF could declare 6.40 percent as dividend. However, workers in other companies hoped it would be higher. An official announcement is expected next week.

The 2013 dividend of 6.35 percent payout was derived after deducting the net impairment allowance on financial assets, investment expenses, operating expenditures, statutory charges as well as dividend on withdrawals.

The dividend rate was also declared on the back of a record gross investment income, an investment analyst said.

The highest sum in dividend payout to contributors in recent years was in 2013.

It was 13.66 percent higher than the total dividend payout in 2012, which was RM27.45 billion.

This year, according to analysts, may top all records as its membership has grown remarkably in the past year.

The analyst said that some of EPF’s promising equities portfolio generated double-digit realised returns, exceeding the performance of other similar funds.

He added that the strong performance in its equities portfolio was helped by the local and global indices reaching new highs.