Structure and objectives of Austria's foreign direct investment in the four adjacent Central and Eastern European countries Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia



8.0% were destined for other Central and Eastern European destinations. Interestingly, those industries
which have invested most heavily in the CEECs display the highest shares of the local market.2
Construction shows a local market share of 89.2%, followed by food and beverages (83.0%), petroleum
and chemicals (81.6%), non-metallic products (78.7%) and trade (74.3%).

This evidence confirms in a convincing manner the predominance of market-driven motives. Out of six
strongest investing industries there is only one which yields an important share exports to the EU. 17.2%
of petroleum and chemicals sales have been exported to Austria. Nevertheless, this feature depends
heavily on the specific Austrian joint-ventures in Slovakia and Slovenia.

However the remaining industries show a rather different regional structure of their sales. The further
one goes down in Table 4 the more the EU as well as the Austrian market shares grow. Moreover, the
further one goes down the more industries of the ’core’ industrial sector appear. This sub-sector sells
51.1% on EU markets. The share of the local market is just 39.3%. This distinctive feature is of
substantial importance because it indicates rather clearly that within this ’core’ industrial sector some
highly specialised division of labour has already taken place. And it is not only Austria where these
products are shipped to. Even other EU countries are involved into this European division of labour. This
specific feature confirms an assumption which was postulated by several other scholars (ALTZINGER,
1997a; KURZ and WITTKE, 1997; LEMOINE, 1997; LORENTZEN, et al., 1998). Intra-industry trade
between the EU and the CEECs is developing rather quickly and this kind of integration is not based on
inter-sectoral specialisation any longer.

The last row of Table 4 exhibits the most endangered industry of developed nations, textiles. 77.0% of
the overall textile production has been sold to EU markets. This industry is certainly an outstanding
example of an industry which is - mainly due to its labour-intensive pattern - in great trouble. Yet the
strong dependence on foreign markets has been expected.

In addition to this evidence it seems to be of interest to look even to intra-firm trade data. Such intra-firm
trade across national boundaries has reached considerable proportions relative to countries’ trade. This is
especially true for the most developed countries (UNCTAD, 1996).

During the period 1989-95 intra-firm exports from the Austrian parent company to its affiliates rose from
ATS 13.9 billion to ATS 27.4 billion. This huge increase is partly due to Austria’s integration into the EU
(and the new division of labour which was enforced thereby) and partly to the close and enlarging
economic relations with the CEECs. Measured as a share of total exports, intra-firm exports to the
CEECs rose from 3.4% in 1989 to 8.7% in 1994. On the import side the changes were less dramatic. The
share of intra-firm imports from the CEECs increased only from 2.6% in 1989 to 4.6% in 1994
(Altzinger, 1997b).

The outcome of the intra-firm relations of Austria’s MNEs is a large trade surplus which amounted to
ATS 19.0 billion in 1995. Although most of this surplus has been achieved with the EU, the development
of the surplus in the 'Eastern' region is not at all negligible. To assess this development in greater detail it
is interesting to compare intra-firm trade by industries (see Table 5):

In 1995 intra-firm exports to the CEECs amounted to ATS 5.2 billion whilst the imports accounted only

19



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