Multinational Firms and FDI in Southeast Asia: Post-Crisis Changes in the Manufacturing Sector

The real impact of the Asian Crisis on the activities of multinational enterprises with investments in Southeast Asia is only now becoming apparent. This article provides some of the first empirical evidence on this issue, stemming from a survey conducted in mid-1999, amongst retail-oriented multinational firms with regional headquarters located in Singapore. The survey confirms the negative impact of the Asian economic crisis on multinational enterprises' regional operations, and indicates the persistence of structural impediments to foreign investment across parts of the region. The gap between the attractions of the ASEAN-5 countries and the Indochina countries, as hosts for foreign investment, is also becoming more pronounced