The growth trajectory of the Indian economy over the last few decades has undoubtedly captured the attention of the world. However, the growth story continues to be dominated by traditional industries such as banking and financial services, IT consultancy, agricultural commodities and the likes. Thus, for the retail investor, the spectrum of themes available to them for investments can become narrow.

By joining the global investment bandwagon, investors can take advantage of investing in themes or sectors that may not be available in the Indian stock landscape yet. Think of tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon – these companies have a scale, customer base and global reach that Indian companies are yet to have. Not only have the products of these companies become a part of the daily lives of countless Indians, but their stocks have also created exceptionally high returns in the last few years. Also, with the younger generations embracing globalised brands like never before, these companies are likely to see their stature growing in leaps and bounds in the coming years.

Global investing also provides exposure to themes which have the potential to become mega trends in the future but are yet to make their presence felt in India. For instance, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, cloud computing etc are already ushering in mammoth changes in developed economies. By investing in global markets, investors can leverage the strides being made by companies in these sectors for wealth creation.

International Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are one of the most popular and reliable channels for starting your global investment journey. International ETFs invest primarily in foreign-based securities. The focus of these ETFs can vary – they can be regional, global, or country-specific and they may have equities as well as fixed-income securities as holdings. International ETFs can track either global markets or the benchmark index of a specific country.

The markets of developed economies are informationally efficient and thus it can be tricky for active fund managers to outperform the market. Investing in international ETFs is simpler as there is negligible need for fund managers to track markets. Investing in foreign equities through ETFs is also preferred by institutional investors. Another major advantage of ETFs is low cost which can boost your returns significantly in the long run due to compounding.

For information on one-time KYC (Know Your Customer) process, Registered Mutual Funds and procedure to lodge a complaint, refer to the knowledge center section available on the website of Mirae Asset Mutual Fund

Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks, read all scheme related documents carefully.