In our today’s world transnational companies (TNCs) play a crucial role in global economy as they are one of the biggest economic institutions. In this essay, I will give an explanation of what transnational company actually is, describe the main trends of TNCs activity and express my own opinion about transnational companies’ future and compare it with the view of other views.

To begin with, let me define the term of “transnational company”. It is important to give a correct definition of word, because there are different categories of companies, doing business in another country, such as multinational and international companies. So, TNC is a commercial enterprise with a very complex organization, that operates huge facilities, has a business more than in one country and whose external assets cover from 25 to 30 or even more percent of all volume of a company. There are more ways to explain the meaning of this term, but we will stop on this one. The history of transnational companies begins in 1118, when the Order of Knights Templars was founded. It was not actually TNC, but some kind of financial centre. In the year of 1135 they started to develop banking industry all over other countries. Officially, East India company is regarded as the very first transnational company, which was established in 1600.

Now let’s move on to identifying the main trends and role of transnational companies in our contemporary world. They act as a driving force of key processes of modern global economy. TNCs determine structure, dynamics, level of marketability of goods and services, controlling international capital flows and direct foreign investments. Because of its productive and financial possibilities, transnational companies maintain hold of high-tech industries, advancing technological growth of this sphere. They are becoming a significant force in a world economy, as their wide range of functions, starting from industrial processes and ending up to operations in investment, financial and trade policy, allows them to play a role of international regulator of production and distributor of goods and services. The biggest TNCs have even established supremacy over world trade market and in leading fields of economy.