bouncing back to an increasing trend after last year’s slowdown.
This is especially true for foreign sales where the share of respondents stating that foreign revenues account for more than half of total sales is expected to jump from about 50 per cent of all respondents in 2013 to 63 per cent in 2016.
Similarly, the survey reveals that in the next three years, firms intend to significantly increase their foreign operations by raising the share of assets, investment expenditures and employment abroad. The share of those TNCs having less than 20 per cent of operations overseas is expected to fall by between 6 and 10 percentage points in all areas of activity (figure 5).
With respect to last year, the internationalization drive is particularly marked for employment where by 2016 about 46 per cent of companies are expected to have more than half of their staff abroad. In contrast, research and development activities, while still showing increasing internationalization intentions by TNCs, will maintain their main location in headquarters.