Paris may attract the lion's share of France's FDI inflows, but the leaders of other French cities – Toulouse, Nice, Marseille and Lille – argue that there are just as many opportunities for investment elsewhere in the country, with specialist hubs and clusters growing in the life sciences, aerospace and textiles sectors.

As budget cuts loom in the US and businesses move their funding to growth regions such as China, fDi looks at whether the US's reputation as a global leader in R&D is under threat?

Jan Hoffmeister, the managing director of global virtual data room provider Drooms, explains how important it is for the company to remain limber and adapt to emerging M&A trends.

While some IT hotspots in central and eastern Europe are overheating, with rising demand leading to a hike in wage expectations, Macedonia is positioning itself to take advantage, investing in developing the IT expertise of its graduates and establishing a business incubator to assist new businesses.

The managing director of IBM Venture Capital Group, Claudia Fan Munce, says that bright new start-ups are appearing all over the world, and her team is hitting the road to find them.

The Philippines has experienced exponential growth in its business process outsourcing sector in recent years, but the country's underdeveloped infrastructure is in danger of limiting its growth in the sector in the future.