India, Oct. 4 -- For years, ever since the pandemic, developed nations and large businesses talked about China+1 strategy, or having extra vendors and suppliers based closer home, apart from those in China. Recent trends in FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) establish this trend. Surprisingly, China adopted the opposite blueprint. Its firms ventured further, as far as Europe and Mexico. MNCs from the emerging economies like Brazil, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates neither closed in, nor expanded out.
On an overall basis, geopolitics drove the geographical distance that businesses travelled to set up foreign manufacturing bases. In terms of the geographical distance covered, between 2005 and 2025, the value-weighted average for goods st...