Substantial amounts of foreign trade and hence movements of currency result from the
activities of very large multinational companies or enterprises. Multinational enterprises
(MNEs), strictly defined, are enterprises operating in a number of countries and
having production or service facilities outside the country of their origin. These multinationals
usually have their headquarters in a developed country – with four exceptions
(Cemex (Mexico), LG Electronics (Korea), Petróleos de Venezuela and Petronus
(Malaysia)), the largest 100 MNEs are based in the developed world. Typically, MNEs
still employ two-thirds of their workforce and produce two-thirds of their output in
their home country. A relatively new concept is the transnational enterprise. Often used
interchangeably with multinational enterprise, this refers to enterprises which do not
have a national base – they are truly international companies. More will be said about
this concept later, but as they are still relatively rare, this section will concentrate on
MNEs.Multinationals are often well-known household names, as Table 10.9 shows.