Financial centre of the 19th century. After 1870, Berlin and New York grew to become major financial centres mainly serving their national economies. An array of smaller international financial centers found market niches, such as Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, and Geneva. London remained the leading international financial center in the four decades leading up to World War I. Since then, London and New York have developed leading positions in different activities and some non-Western financial centres have grown in prominence, notably Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Asia, Tokyo emerged as a major financial centre in the 1980s as the Japanese economy became
Labuan International Business and Financial Centre has been designated as a financial centre and free trade zone by the Malaysian government. In January 2008, a rebranding and repositioning exercise of the IBFC to reflect the jurisdiction's burgeoning international status was followed by an aggressive marketing exercise. This included the setting up of Labuan IBFC Incorporated Sdn. Bhd. in May of the same year with a mandate by the Malaysian government to market and promote Labuan as the premier International Business and Financial Centre in Asia Pacific. Labuan International Business and Financial Centre Labuan International Business and Financial Centre (IBFC) is a special economic zone of the