The Strategy of Korean Firms' FDI into European Union

한국기업의 대EU 직접투자전략

The purpose of this study is to review the current trend of FDIs by Korean companies into EU, and to present the optimal strategies for them to combine their firm-specific factors and FDI attractiveness of the regions in EU. The companies are divided into two categories, SMEs and large enterprises. The regions of EU are composed of 15 incumbent members before the fifth enlargement in 2004 and 12 new members. Large Korean companies tend to make large investments in 15 incumbent members with stable and mature markets. Korean SMEs, by contrast, mainly invest on small scales in the new members due to the lack of their available inner resources and knowledge for the markets. The main objects of the investments in EU by the large Korean companies are to gain more market share and to acquire the advanced technologies. Although such goals are also important for the SMEs, the most important objects for the investments by Korean SMEs in EU are usually to enter EU markets and to take advantage of the relatively cheap labor forces for the efficient operations. The effects of such passive strategies by the SMEs, however, are expected to extinct because the cost advantages in regions of the new EU members will not last in the long term, so the SMEs must take longer views for the choice of locations. Many empirical results suggest that the optimal FDI strategies for the Korean companies in EU could be worked mainly by more aggressive localization policy of companies and by the cooperations of SMEs and large enterprises for the reduction in costs of foreignness.