Seoul Korea - The Korean stock market is sandwiched between the two flourishing markets of Japan and China. The Nikkei 225 index has gained 105.4 percent for the past three years largely due to the weakening yen. The Shanghai Stock Exchange composite index too rose 38.8 percent this year alone buoyed by the Chinese government's measures to nurture the stock market including the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, or Hu-Gang Tong. In contrast, Korea's KOSPI fell short of increasing 5.2 percent for the past three years, with a negative growth of 4.4 percent this year to date.
The inflow of foreign money into the Korean market is also shrinking. The volume of global money invested in the Japanese markets since October this year was US$28 billion. This is 105 times more than $264 million flowed into Korea during the same period. The amount of foreign money landing in China for less than four weeks since November 17 when the Hu-Gang Tong scheme was in full force was $11.18 billion. During the same period, the corresponding figure for Korea was $1.6 billion.
Ahn Yoo-hwa, international finance analyst with the Korea Capital Market Institute, said, "The share of China in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, an important yardstick used by the world's big investors when investing in emerging markets, is likely to rise to 28 percent next year from 19 percent this year. The investment of about $4 trillion will go to China bypassing Korea entirely."
By 오해영 기자
