Robeco says that it is strengthening its conviction in emerging-market assets, which it ranks amongst its favorite asset classes and sees as likely to generate the strongest performance over the coming years.

"Emerging-market equities and debt performed particularly well last year and that should continue this year," said Walid Aliane, head of institutional client coverage at Robeco.

Jan de Bruijn, Client Portfolio Manager for Emerging-Market Equities, agreed, listing the factors that drove performance last year: a weak dollar, rising earnings, attractive valuations and investor positioning that remains underweight.

For investors, the key points flagged by Robeco are as follows:

- Unjustified valuation discount: despite earnings growth expected to outpace developed markets for a third consecutive year, emerging-market equities are trading at a 35% discount.

- Fiscal strength: unlike past crises, emerging countries now show healthier financial balance sheets than G7 nations, with markedly lower debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratios.

- Technology dominance: Robeco notes there is "no Artificial Intelligence (AI) without emerging markets," citing, for example, Taiwan and South Korea's grip on global production of logic chips and high-bandwidth memory.

- Local-currency debt: the emerging-market debt segment is seen in a "Goldilocks" phase, benefiting from a weaker dollar and central banks that moved ahead of the rate-cut cycle.

Jan de Bruijn said the emerging-markets universe is "no longer a beta bet but an alpha story." He nonetheless stressed the heterogeneity of performance across countries, which makes geographic allocation decisive and favors active management.

In this context, Robeco is notably positioned on Taiwan chip giant TSMC, as well as SK Square (Korea), Samsung Electronics (Korea), Naspers (South Africa), Alibaba (China), Itau Unibanco (Brazil), Contemporary Amperex Technology (China), Hana Financial (Korea), Grupo Financiereo Banorte SAB (Mexico) and Kia (Korea).

Finally, Meena Santhosh, Client Portfolio Manager for Emerging-Market Debt, presented emerging-market debt as the "foundation" of the emerging-market pairing, pointing in particular to attractive yields, lower volatility than equities and its diversification role.

She highlighted dynamics seen as favorable for local-currency debt, supported not only by the dollar but also by carry, improving fundamentals (foreign-exchange reserves, debt-to-GDP lower than in developed countries) and a disinflation cycle opening the way to rate cuts in several countries.

Robeco also pointed to a broader investment universe and still-low institutional positioning, despite recent inflows.