Today, more people, commodities and products, more ideas and images, more genes and microbes, will move around the planet than at any other time in human history. Growth in international trade and investment has been remarkable, as the figures below attest: - World trade increased 17-fold between 1950 and 1998, surpassing US$5.4 trillion per year in 1998;
- More than five billion tons of goods were shipped internationally in 1998, a six-fold increase since 1955;
- Between 1989 and 1999, foreign direct investment doubled to US$981 billion;
- The number of transnational corporations worldwide increased from 7,000 in 1970—when a few people started worrying about their power—to roughly 54,000 in 1998. Total sales in goods and services by such corporations and their nearly 450,000 subsidiaries are twice the amount that is traded internationally, at US$9.5 trillion in 1998. Intra-firm trade, which lies outside any rules of any international trade accords, now represents 40 percent or more of total world trade;
- In late 1999, the US stock market had a capitalization of over US$12 trillion, equivalent to an unprecedented 140 percent of the annual output of the US economy;
- E-commerce—either business-to-business or business-to-customer—comprised US$127 billion in transactions in 1998. That figure is expected to increase to US$1.4 trillion by 2003.(...)
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