• There are about 37 000 TNCs in the world, and they have over 200 000 foreign affiliated companies.

• Five advanced capitalist countries (USA, Japan, France, Germany and the UK) account for 172 transnationals out of the top 200 and for US$ 2 000 000 000 000 (two trillion dollars) worth of foreign direct investment (in 1992).

• Fewer than one in ten TNCs come from newly-industrialising countries like Korea and Brazil.

• Transnational corporations control about 70 percent of all world trade.

• Almost 40 per cent of world trade takes place between the companies of individual corporations. Some goods are controlled by only a handful of TNCs. For example just six corporations control 90 per cent of the world's trade in wheat. TNCs control 80 per cent of all land farmed for export crops.

• The biggest TNC is General Electric, with assets worth over US$251 billion (251 000 000 000 US dollars).

• The TNC that employs the most workers is General Motors: about 750 000 people worldwide.

• The sales of the Ford motor company each year are greater than what the country Norway produces in a year (Gross Domestic Product, GDP). Philip Morris's tobacco sales every year total more than the GDP of New Zealand. The top six corporate groups in Japan together make up four-fifths of Japan's gross national product (GNP).

• Most foreign direct investment is exchanged between the big three industrialised blocs: the USA/Canada/Mexico (the North America Free Trade Area - NAFTA), the European Union (EU), and Japan/Asia.

• In the 1980s, most foreign investment going to the Third World went to Brazil, Mexico, Singapore and Malaysia. In the 1990s China leapt into first place, with foreign investments worth US$ 26 billion a year. By contrast, the whole continent of Africa receives only US$ 3 billion a year, even though African governments have adopted pro-investment policies and profits rates are often higher than in Europe. Central/Eastern Europe get about US$ 5 billion a year.

Foreign investment today goes more into services such as banking, communications, transport, electricity supply and tourism and less into manufacturing goods. Privatisation of the public sector is encouraging this trend.