PTI

New Delhi: Global investors have pulled out over $480 million from India-focused funds last month, with as much as $120 million flowing out in the last week, amid the meltdown in the equity markets.

India-focused funds have witnessed the highest outflows among all the Asian funds in the last four weeks, followed by China funds, which saw redemptions of over $286 million, as per data compiled by global fund tracking firm EPFR.

India-focused country funds saw an outflow of $119.7 million in the last week of October, while for the past four weeks the toll has been as much as $482.2 million, according to the data.

However, so far this year, the total redemptions from India-dedicated funds have been the second highest, of over $2 billion, while China-focused funds have witnessed the highest outflows of $2.8 billion in 2008 so far.

The Indian benchmark index Sensex dropped over 3,000 points from over 13,000 to below 10,000 in October, while China’s Shanghai SE Composite Index had fallen from over 2,100 to below 1,700 in the last month.

Asian equity funds excluding Japan extended their losing streak to the eighth week in a row and recorded net outflows of $1 billion in October. In the last week of October they suffered an outflow of over $386 million.

“Risk aversion and fears of softer US demand dominated hopes of developed market rate cuts during late October, with trade-dependent Asian markets being hit particularly hard,” the EPFR report stated.