ABSTRACT
The post-war period has witnessed the sustained and unprecedented growth of the multinational enterprise (MNE). The growth of international business financed by foreign direct investment has been accompanied by increasing diversity in its geographical source distribution. In the period since 1960 and most notably since the mid-1970s the emergence and growth of newer home countries from both developed and developing countries has provided additional competitive elements in the general trend towards internationalisation. These newer home countries acquired the capacities and the incentive to catch up in the process of international production and in some cases their relatively faster rate of growth and increasing competitiveness have served to challenge the expansion of the more traditional investor countries, the United States and United Kingdom.
