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Indian markets raised a whopping $8.3 billion through 95 IPOs in 2007 placing it at the fifth rank globally, according to a Ernst & Young report released on Wednesday. The report said that a record $255 billion was raised globally through 1,739 IPOs (initial public offering) compared to $246 billion raised in 1,729 deals in the whole of 2006. China once again bagged the first rank with most capital raised at $54.4 billion through 227 deals.

The report noted that the strong fundamentals of the India's economy, stock market, corporate profits and private equity fuelled the IPOs in 2007. Last year, the country had raised $7.23 billion through 78

IPOs. The largest IPO during 2007 globally was Russia's VTB Bank, which raised $8.0 billion.

R Balachander, IPO leader, strategic growth markets, Ernst & Young, India said, "In recent years, we notice a surge in IPO activity in emerging economies, especially

the BRIC countries - 14 of the top 20 IPOs were from emerging markets." "The corporate sector is on a high growth trajectory resulting in a marked increase in their need for capital," he added.

Despite accounting for only 4% of the total number of IPOs so far this year, Hong Kong Stock Exchange was the leading exchange by capital raised, attracting a 13% market share, mainly due to some of the year's largest listings, including China CITIC Bank and China Railway.  New York Stock Exchange was ranked second with capital raising of 11%, attracting 3.6% of total listings worldwide driven by a number of large US deals, including Blackstone Group and MF Global.

Asia-Pacific accounted for 46% of IPOs worldwide, ahead of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) with 35% and North America with 14%. EMEA and Asia-Pacific have the greatest market share of capital raised with 38% and 32% respectively, ahead of North America, which accounted for 16%.