The term, pre-emerging markets is a standard term for the smaller, and/or less-developed — yet still investable — equity markets of the developing world. The term is a synonym for what have become known as the Frontier markets

Frontier markets

Frontier Markets is an economic term which was coined by International Finance Corporation’s Farida Khambata in 1992. It is commonly used to describe a subset of emerging markets ....

. The countries comprising the list of pre-emerging, or frontier equity markets is often debated, and by definition, is constantly changing. By definition of their inclusion in this category, pre-emerging markets are expected to "graduate" to emerging market status over time, in that the market capitalization

Market capitalization

Market capitalization is a measurement of the value of the ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company...

 will increase as a percentage of GDP, and that the liquidity of the markets will gradually improve.