ABSTRACT
The fancy of leasing is as old as mankind. The applications of this fancy have naturally varied remarkably, based on social, legal, economic, fiscal, financial and technical circumstances prevailing in the respective civilisation and period of time. Globally, the development of leasing accelerated in the 1960s and the 1970s in west Europe, in the 1980s in Asian and Latin American countries, varying based on the circumstance of an individual country. International leasing has grown dramatically since the 1980s. According to T. M. Clark, the total figure for international leasing business in 1983 was about US$18 billion approximately the same size as the total domestic leasing business in Europe. International leasing is even more complicated because different countries have different ways dealing with legal, accounting and tax problems, and have different cultural backgrounds, economic and social-political systems. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
