This directory includes information on more than 400 companies, accounting for the bulk of the world's direct foreign investment. Only companies with over $500 million of foreign sales are mentioned. This 4th edition highlights the trend towards increasing internationalization of companies' activities. The growing importance of major global trading blocs, including the single market within the European Community and the co-operative arrangements among SouthEast Asian and North American countries, was one of the factors fuelling the wave of merger and acquisition activity in the later 1980s and has led to expansion overseas by many of the world's largest companies.