BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink said the worst start of the year for emerging-market equities since 2009 is providing a buying opportunity.

“These emerging markets have growing and stronger balance sheets and a faster GDP,” Fink said in an interview with Charlie Rose that aired on PBS yesterday. Developing-nation equities are attractive because of their low valuations relative to the potential growth rates in these countries, Fink said.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 0.8 percent to a three-week high at 3:09 p.m. in New York, trimming this year’s drop to 5 percent. The selloff dragged the index’s valuation to less than 9 times projected 12-month earnings on Feb. 4, the cheapest since August and compared with a multiple of 14 for the MSCI World Index of developed-country equities.

Fink, whose firm is the world’s largest money manager with $4.3 trillion in assets, joins Templeton Emerging Markets Group’s Mark Mobius and Aberdeen Asset Management Ltd. in recommending developing-nation stocks.

Investors should buy Indonesian stocks because of the country’s expanding economy and a debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio that’s lower than most of the countries in Europe, Fink said.