Born and initially developed in various industrial laboratories, mainly in U.S.A. and Gennany, homogeneous phase catalytic carbon monoxide hydrogenation and alcohols and their derivatives carbonylation and homologation, have generally been considered and reviewed separately in the course of their 40 years history without concern for common aspects in the chemical transfonnations and in catalysis. Thanks to researchers of Japanese companies participating in the National C 1 Chemistry Project (1980-1987) the scientific and technical approaches in this field have been unified and applied in...