Recent months have seen a burst of interest in Asian "frontier markets" – countries where stock markets are so small they fail to qualify as emerging markets, and that are difficult for foreign investors to buy into, but have potential to grow rapidly.

Countries such as Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Mongolia, and even Indian Ocean island states such as the Maldives and Mauritius, are on Asian investors' radar. (Mauritius may be physically closer to Africa but its population is largely Indian, and the economy is increasingly integrated with Asia.)