| Abstract: | In the past two decades, a high level of foreign direct investments could be observed in the international environment, except in 2008 and 2009, when the intensity of foreign direct investments declined due to the global economic crisis, which had an impact on events in the international environment. Due to a positive impact on economy and development of the recipient country, developing countries tried to attract new foreign investors. In the case of Europe, there is a significant increase of foreign direct investments in Central and Eastern Europe, where in recent years, foreign direct investments have heavily increased. Particularly in Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, whereas Slovakia performed slightly worse, but still a lot better than Slovenia, which has a significantly lower level of foreign investments than other countries.
The research in the master’s thesis defines foreign direct investments in Central and Eastern European countries and their status in relation to Slovenia. The goal of the thesis is to determine, if the accession of countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – V4 countries) to the European Union had an influence on the increase of the rate of foreign direct investments in these countries. We also wanted to determine, if low labour costs are one of the fundamental factors for foreign direct investments in Central and Eastern European countries for companies in labour intensive industries. Finally, we wanted to determine, if Slovenia, among the analysed Central and Eastern European countries, is less attractive for foreign direct investments.
After the accession of some Central and Eastern European countries to the EU and after the abolishment of the Schengen area, this area became easier accessible and logistically less demanding, particularly due to the abolition of the customs territory. Due to this, investors had the possibility of moving freely between these countries, which after 2004 became even more interesting for foreign investors due to their stable economy and low production costs. In recent years, in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia took place different Greenfield and Brownfield investments, where the absolute winner in the case of both types of investments is Poland. In all V4 countries we can find the largest international corporations from the automobile and food industry, electronic, mechanical industry etc. These countries are constantly facing an increased number of investments in increasing amounts, what Slovenia could only want.
Quite the opposite goes for Slovenia, which is despite its good development far behind all these four countries. The main problems are the poor macroeconomic environment and uncompetitive production – (too) high costs per unit of product, particularly when the majority of the production cost represents the cost of labour. Particularly problematic are also other costs, concerning the construction of a new production building, and connected slow administrative procedures, tax burdens on companies, excessive regulation of production flows and consequently the uncompetitive economic environment. |
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