Foreign institutional investments in equities soared by 43 per cent to over $9.43 billion this year pushing the Sensex to intra-day record high of 6,409 on Wednesday.

The inflows have been more than $9.6 billion dollar till December 14 if FII investments in government securities and treasury bills are added, according to figures compiled by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

The net investments of the FIIs in shares of Indian companies stood at $9.426 billion or about Rs 42,834 crore since January 2004. In 2003, the FII investments aggregated $6.5 billion or Rs 30,459 crore.

FII inflows started picking up since September last year and continued to be robust till May when the United Progressive Alliance government assumed office.

There was a sharp fall in FII inflows as foreign investors were apprehensive of the continuation of reforms, especially with the Left parties opposing some of the major policy decisions of the previous National Democratic Alliance regime.

However, after the Budget presentation in July, the foreign funds again evinced renewed interest in the Indian market and pumped in more than $3.3 billion since August.

FII inflow, which peaked to $1.69 billion in April 2004, tapered off to $118 million in June and $201 million in July, but started rising from August and touched $1.47 billion in November.

The foreign portfolio investment has touched $1-billion mark in the first 15 days of December.