Today's young, cosmopolitan businessperson sees every stranger, regardless of national origin, as a potential customer, supplier, employee or partner. Innovative companies now routinely look for solutions beyond their national borders. Global shopping is more than an American phenomenon. In Hong Kong, newsstands can't stock enough Japanese fashion magazines. In China, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, thriving markets move bootleg copies of Japanese music, movies and merchandise.
Technological progress reduces the cost and difficulty of transporting goods and services.
It speeds the communication of information and ideas between countries. Formal and informal education makes distant nations and cultures more familiar and accessible. Greater freedom liberates flows of investment and capital while facilitating travel between and among nations. Changing demographics creates huge new markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa just as populations decline in the West. The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.