In many of the world's major cities, traffic gridlock comes as standard. With such high number of vehicles on the roads leading to heavy pollution and frustratingly long commuting times, the case for mass rapid-transit systems is becoming increasingly difficult for many cities to ignore.

Julia Santos, head of global business optimisation for the Johnson & Johnson Group, explains to Barbara Njau why outsourcing is essential to the company’s business strategy.

As the global economic balance of power shifts from west to east, international financial centres in Asia are growing in prominence at the expense of their developed world counterparts. But is this shift a permanent one?

An fDiIntelligence evaluation into biotech FDI between 2003 and 2011 shows that although the US is the dominant country in the sector, Asian cities lead in attractiveness for projects, competing on both quality and cost.

Indonesia has achieved significant economic growth in the past three years and now, with the help of a new development plan, its government has set the ambitious target of transforming the country into a major economic power by 2025. Can Indonesia compete on the same stage as Asia's behemoth economies such as India and China, or will the basic issues of infrastructure and inflation continue to hold it back?

As the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – realise the decade-old prediction that they would become economic superpowers, attention now turns to the global economies that will follow them.