After having lavished attention on the BRIC (Goldman Sach''s acronym for the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets, global investors are now looking at a new alphabetical grouping, CHIME, symbolising China, India and Middle East.

Analysts believe that this geographical grouping — China and India''s high growth and the fund flush Gulf region — holds the promise of tremendous growth in the years ahead.

According to a report in the Asian Venture Capital Journal, "The Middle East and Asia corridor is slowly becoming real and important. As Asia has become a lot more attractive today than the Western countries and the Gulf is an emerging market with a lot of liquidity."

Compared to the high-growth BRIC emerging markets, CHIME is developing as a far more geographically continuous and economically consistent proposition, the report noted.

This reverses the previously held view that the Mid East region continues to look for investment avenues outside.

Investors from the prosperous and high growth six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, (comprising the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain) have a different outlook and priorities to Western funds looking to diversify away from their own slow-growth economies.

The abundant liquidity of the GCC group means that investors may be more ready to explore new options and take risks and hence there could be an increasing look towards the east.