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A number of managers disagree over whether current spending plans unveiled by countries such as China will stimulate demand for commodities or whether more long-term trends will provide new avenues for investment.

Matthias Siller, fund manager of the Baring Emerging Europe trust, said demand for raw materials from China would help fuel Russian growth in the near term.

He said infrastructure spending represented a significant proportion of economic stimulus packages announced by governments around the world.

"Due to its high commodity reserves, Russia is going to play a critical role in China's rapid industrialisation and urbanisation," he said.

"Oil and gas aside, it is little known that Russia has approximately 40 per cent of the global reserves of palladium, 28 per cent of titanium, 17 per cent of nickel and 8 per cent of iron ore."

But Ewan Thompson, fund manager of the Neptune Emerging Markets fund, said the markets were beginning to move away from hard commodities despite their outperformance of other sectors earlier this year.

Thompson said cyclical sectors such as materials and energy had performed best since the fund's launch in September, but that he was now taking steps to reposition the funds in other sectors.

He said he now planned to cut some of its exposure to energy and materials in favour of long-term structural themes ahead of any consolidation in the sectors.

Thompson said greater opportunities lay in the growing prosperity of people in India and China, where demand for consumer goods is likely to increase.

"The most attractive of these long-term investment opportunities lie in the emergence of the middle-classes across the major emerging economies, as well as strong demographic trends in these regions," he added.

"These opportunities are wide-ranging, including basic household staples such as soap and dairy products, as well as products like credit cards, cosmetics and footwear."

Thompson said the sector was likely to remain a strong investment theme as the region continued to outperform developed markets.

"Over the coming years, emerging markets will provide greater investment returns compared with developed market peers due to the superior growth potential available."

The latest Global Emerging Markets figures from the Investment Management Association for May saw gross retail sales of £125.9m, an improvement on April, when it had sales of just £109m.

Figures for the AIC Global Emerging Market sector for May showed funds were trading at a discount of 7.6 per cent, among the lowest of the 33 sectors.