Stefan Bottcher, manager of Manulife's GF Emerging Eastern Europe Fund and head of Eastern Europe portfolios for Charlemagne Capital, had a good 2002.
The fund, which invests primarily in securities that are listed in Eastern European countries, returned 23.55 per cent in the year to the end of January, according to figures from Standard & Poor's Micropal - outperforming the MSCI Eastern Europe Index by more than 20 per cent for the second year in a row.
This year, things have held steady, with the fund losing 2.7 per cent in January and gaining 1.7 per cent in February.
For Mr Bottcher, the million-dollar question is whether the good times will continue.
'This year is a challenge, of course,' he said. 'The geopolitical situation globally is very difficult to assess. We are stock pickers so we are not really in a good position to assess what is happening globally. But even those people who are specialists - claiming they understand the top-down much better than we do - might find it difficult today to assess what is going to happen, considering the situation in Iraq.'
Despite global uncertainty, he is hopeful this year. Central Europe remains attractive because of the economic growth heralded by European Union membership in 2004 while reforms in Russia, coupled with high oil prices, are causing a boom in that commodity-driven market.