1977–89 figures exclude economies in transition and some Middle Eastern emerging markets. Source: IMF 1995, p. 33 IMF 1998, p. 13. Two things stand out from this overall picture. First, the extraordinary increase in the flows starting in 1990, with this increase being truly phenomenal in Asia.
By the mid-1990s, developing countries were taking 40% of global foreign direct investment (compared with 15% in 1990) and accounted for 30% of global portfolio equity flows (compared with 2% at the start of the decade) (World Bank 1997, p. 9).