Editors' introduction: Patterns and dynamics of Asia's growing share of FDI

Capital throughout the world has become increasingly mobile in recent decades and international trade has been exploding. Advances in information communications technology and the accelerated pace of international distribution in recent years have promoted the growth of foreign investment which divides the various processes of research and development (R&D), procurement, production, manufacturing and sales, among others, between a number of countries. Until the recent past, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade mainly flowed from the developed countries into the developed countries: in particular, the ‘triad’ (the European Union, the United States, and Japan). Until the mid-1980s, the role of developing and transitional Asian economies as sources of investment was negligible.