The data for February hasn't yet caught the big market falls of March; it does show that inflows continued in February.

Exchange traded funds and products listed in Japan gathered a net inflow of $4.68 billion in February, taking inflows since January to $8.82 billion, according to figures from ETFGI, a firm tracking such data.

The figures were compiled before markets were slammed by the elevation of the COVID-19 virus to the status of pandemic by the World Health Organzation. As of the time of writing, the MSCI Japan index of equities (measured in dollars) is down by about 26 per cent; Japan's GDP is strongly influenced by its ability to export, and disruption to global supply chains will be a major issue for the country.

Assets invested in the Japanese ETFs/ETPs industry have fallen by 8.3 per cent, from $398.65 billion at the end of January, to $365.76 billion, according to ETFGI's February 2020 Japanese ETFs and ETPs industry landscape insights report.

At the end of February 2020, the Japan ETFs/ETPs industry had 209 ETFs/ETPs, with 244 listings, from 19 providers listed on 2 exchanges, the report said.

ETFs are typically open-ended, index-based funds, with active ETFs accounting for 1.1 per cent of the market share. ETPs, on the other hand, are similar to ETFs in the way that they trade and settle, but do not use an open-end fund structure.