Countries including India, Indonesia, Pakistan and South Korea experienced significant growth in FDI in 2011, but both Japan and Thailand suffered on the back of natural disasters.

In many of the world's major cities, traffic gridlock comes as standard. With such high number of vehicles on the roads leading to heavy pollution and frustratingly long commuting times, the case for mass rapid-transit systems is becoming increasingly difficult for many cities to ignore.

Julia Santos, head of global business optimisation for the Johnson & Johnson Group, explains to Barbara Njau why outsourcing is essential to the company’s business strategy.

As the global economic balance of power shifts from west to east, international financial centres in Asia are growing in prominence at the expense of their developed world counterparts. But is this shift a permanent one?

An fDiIntelligence evaluation into biotech FDI between 2003 and 2011 shows that although the US is the dominant country in the sector, Asian cities lead in attractiveness for projects, competing on both quality and cost.