Despite short-term problems of higher inflation and rising interest rates in developing economies the urge for a global footprint has not abated for businessmen there. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland emerging markets were still a hot talking point. With more cash and confidence than ever before, businessmen from developing economies were increasingly reversing the traditional flow of investments, ie, developed Western economies buying into emerging markets as a hedge to compensate for flagging revenues in home markets where consumption has been hard hit by debt problems. The trend over the last five years in emerging markets is seen to continue, which has seen China's Lenovo buy IBM's PC business, India's Tat Motors buy global luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover (and turn them round into profit in about three years) and Mexico's Groupo Bimbo set to become the world's largest bread maker when it completes Sara Lee's North American bakery business. According to the Boston Consulting Group, by 2020 the top 100 players of the emerging world could collectively generate about $ 8 trillion in revenues. This is almost the same as aggregate S&P 500 revenues today. These 100 "global challengers" will come from 16 countries,

David Fuller's view I believe it. We are talking about countries with a combined population of over 4.5 billion, which are now harnessing the scientific, managerial and entrepreneurial skills of their rapidly growing middleclasses.