An important aspect of foreign direct investment (FDI) is that it has proven to be resilient during financial crises. In situations of international illiquidity, when the country's consolidated financial system has short-term obligations in foreign currency in excess of foreign currency that the country has access to on short notice, FDI flows provide the only direct link between the domestic capital market in the host country and the world capital market at large. For instance, FDI flows to the East Asian countries were remarkably stable during the global financial crises of 1997–1998. In sharp contrast, portfolio equity and debt flows, as well as bank loans, dried up almost completely during the same period. The resilience of FDI to financial crises was also evident in the Mexican crisis of 1994 and the Latin American debt crisis of the early 1980s. This may reflect a unique characteristic of FDI, which is determined by considerations of ownership and control by multinationals of domestic activities, which are more long–term in nature, rather than by short–term fluctuations in the value of domestic currency and the availability of credit and liquidity. The Asian crisis, although it featured massive outflows of short–term capital and sales of foreign equity holdings, was also accompanied by a wave of inward direct foreign investment, when after the financial collapse Asian companies were sold to foreign control at fire–sale prices.