Local authorities in the US have long considered incentives to be a good way of attracting companies to invest in their city or state. But with many local budgets suffering from enormous deficits and a long list of companies that have failed to deliver the level of investment or job creation that was expected of them, is this the best way to spend public money?

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?

With its low-tax, business-first model, Texas has posted jobs numbers that are the envy of the US and solidified its position as an FDI star. Michal Kaczmarski investigates what is behind the Texan swagger.

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.

While most investment promotion agencies are yet to define a social media strategy, there is almost unanimous agreement that such a strategy can prove key to investment promotion efforts.

As the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – realise the decade-old prediction that they would become economic superpowers, attention now turns to the global economies that will follow them.