ABB chief Percy Barnevik as well as several others in the meet used this as proof of their statements that India was not reforming fast enough and was losing out from the opportunity presented by the south east Asian crisis. This was also in sharp contrast to Indian government officials who congratulated India for going slow in opening up and avoiding the south east Asian type of crisis.

According to the survey, though several of the south east Asian countries are still ranked below India, the situation has begun to change in the last six months alone. Similarly, SouthKorea has moved up from 21st place to 16th, and Japan from 23rd to the 19th.

The companies interviewed in the Kearney survey have $13 trillion in assets, and account for 70 per cent of all foreign investment in the world. The importance of the index, and relative movements within it, is obvious from the fact that the top ten countries on the index accounted for 58 per cent of all foreign direct investment in 1997.