The huge outflow has been attributed to the continuing nuclear crisis in Japan, coupled with civil unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.

During the week ending March 23, equity funds lost US$7.68 billion, with emerging-market funds accounting for US$2.65 billion of the outflows.

Emerging market equity funds are off to a terrible start this year, having lost about US$27 billion so far in 2011, according to data compiled by international fund tracking firm EPFR. In recent months, many emerging markets, including India and China, have been grappling with high rates of price rise, which also poses the threat of derailing the fragile global economic recovery. However, EPFR did not disclose specific outflow figures for India-focused funds. According Sebi, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pulled out about US$114.83 million from Indian market during the said period.