UPDATE 1-ETF Securities says may list ETCs in Middle, Far East

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LONDON Aug 5 (Reuters) - ETF Securities said its five precious metal-backed exchange traded commodities have been approved as Shariah compliant by a panel of Islamic scholars, and that it is mulling listing them in the Middle and Far East.

Hector McNeil, ETF Securities' managing partner, said final approval of the products as Shariah compliant had come from the Al Qalam Shariah Scholar Panel at the end of the July.

"We always felt that as (the products) were backed by physical metal (with) no interest component they would be Shariah compliant," he told Reuters.

"We have had lots of organisations call us from both the Middle East and Far East showing big investment interest in the products," he added.

"We are doing an analysis at the moment on whether we should actually list the products in the Middle East and the Far East," he added.

The five products approved -- the gold, silver, platinum and palladium-backed ETCs and one backed by a basket of precious metals -- are the first products of their kind to be approved as Shariah compliant, he said.

The five had trading volumes of $2 billion in July, ETF Securities said.

(Reporting by Jan Harvey; Editing by Michael Roddy)