ABM Abdullah - School of Management, University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia
Md Wahid Murad - UniSA College, University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Internationalisation of an economy is largely thought to be an effective means for making the developed and developing worlds truly become part of one world in which they forge together by a common economic destiny and are guided by the humane principles of peace, friendship, and mutual respect. Accordingly, with this end in view,Malaysia and most other developing countries are pursuing a dynamic path of internationalisation. This study discusses the key processes, strategies and outcomes of internationalisation that enabled Malaysia to become one of the world’s highly competitive countries to date. Fuelled by an inward foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last three decades, Malaysia’s economic zone regime has become the hardware of industrialisation as well as the corner stone of the country’s business internationalisation. Malaysia’s export oriented internationalisation strategy has been the main driving force behind the country’s ultimate pathway toward a highly-guided business and economic globalisation. It is evident from Malaysia’s experience that the free trade zones facilitate convergence of the economically powerful and the powerless groups through business internationalisation and sharing of the gains from trade. Therefore, free trade zones and FDI strategies of the developing countries act as empowering the local businesses to gain multiple capabilities and go global increasingly

Economic internationalisation; free trade zones; foreign direct investment; multinational companies; Malaysia