Chinese have been bringing a large amount of money into South Korea in search of high returns, increasing their investment in the Korean equity market by 44 times in the last five years, data showed Tuesday.

The value of local securities and bond accounts held by Chinese snowballed to 20.8 trillion won ($20.2 billion) as of end-2013, compared to 471.1 billion at end-2008, according to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service.

Chinese have additionally brought in 2.5 trillion won during the first seven months of this year to raise the total to 23.3 trillion won, according to FSS data.

Market analysts said South Korea has become one of the attractive investment destinations among emerging markets amid the low-interest environment. They expected more Chinese funds, considering Beijing's push to deregulate its financial market.

"South Korea's government bond yield is higher than that of Taiwan, whose economic size is similar to Korea, which makes Korea more attractive to (Chinese) investors," said Lee Chi-hoon, a researcher at Korea Center for International Finance. "The Chinese fund has been shifting from bonds to securities," he said. "We have to be careful about the risks since there are clear signs that Chinese (money) influence will grow across the board.' (Yonhap)