Emerging market countries strongly outperformed developed markets in 2007, according to Standard & Poor's World by Numbers report.
According to S&P, emerging markets climbed 42 per cent in 2007, against a gain of 9.4 per cent for the world's developed markets.
Top climber was Nigeria with a 115.3 per cent rise. China ranked seventh from 26, growing 69.8 per cent despite reporting a 3.8 per cent fall in December.
The report showed that 11 of the 26 emerging markets gained at least 50 per cent in 2007.
"The current and expected sales growth in the emerging equity markets fuelled their returns in 2007," S&P senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt said.
"As a result, we saw an outflow of cash from the developed markets into emerging."
In December 19 of the 26 developed world equity markets were in negative territory, an improvement from the 24 developed markets that fell in November.
