The growth in emerging markets can now be played by country-specific exchange-traded funds as well as broad-based stock portfolios.

But on Thursday, another option became available to investors. The first family of ETFs offering exposure to sectors within emerging markets was launched by New York-based Emerging Global Advisors.

• EGS Emerging Markets Energy Fund (NYSE Arca: EEO). It tracks an index of the 30 largest emerging markets companies in the oil and gas industry across 13 countries.
• EGS Emerging Markets Metals & Mining Fund (NYSE Arca: EMT). It includes 30 of the biggest emerging market companies in the metals and mining sectors across nine countries.

As first-movers in the market, the two new emerging markets sector ETFs are setting the cost bar for such a niche at an expense ratio of 0.85% apiece. But Holderith described the new sector ETFs as trading vehicles that would particularly open new avenues for institutional investors.

Despite the relatively high price tag, that might be enticing for hedge fund managers and other investment groups trying to shift large amounts across various emerging markets.

Richard Kang, who serves as the firm's director of research, noted that developing markets can run into rather severe liquidity problems at times. He pointed to the fact that stock exchanges in several emerging countries have been forced to completely shut down. That was the case in Russia during much of the worst of the global financial crisis, among others.

By taking a sector perspective across several different markets, he believes that traders will be able to cushion their exposure to such liquidity problems and diversify their portfolios in different ways. "The Emerging Global Shares ETFs are designed to give investors the ability to execute active investment management strategies in markets where the liquidity to trade is not always available," said Kang in a statement.