AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
INFLOW OF CHINESE INVESTMENT TO THE CZECH BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
a
RENATA ČUHLOVÁ,
b
SYLVIE KOTÍKOVÁ
a
Czech Research Centre, Zhejiang Financial College, 118
Xueyuan street, Xiasha Higher Education Park, 310018
Hangzhou, China
b
Technical University of Liberec, Studentska 1402/2, 461 17
Liberec 1, Czech Republic
email:
a
renata.cuhlova@tul.cz,
b
sylvie.kotikova@tul.cz
The paper was processed under the SGS grant Evaluation of the influence of foreign
capital holders in the business environment
Abstract:
The purpose of establishing a strategic partnership between the Czech
Republic and the People's Republic of China was to increase investment activity
between countries. The aim of the paper is to map the main Chinese capital holders
and their investment activities that were boosted by the Czech system of investment
incentives. The investigation is based on data from Czech National Bank and Czech
national agency CzechInvest using case study approach. In the period 1993 - 2017, the
investment amounted for 6.67 billion CZK. It counts for 29% of all Chinese
investment representing supported projects by the Czech system of investment
incentives. The rest two thirds of Chinese capital goes to core Czech regions.
Keywords: Capital inflow, Chinese capital, Czech economy, foreign direct investment,
investment incentives, multinational companies.
1 Supporting foreign capital inflow – yes or no?
The inflow of foreign capital has been a controversial topic in
economic literature. The reason is its huge range of created
effects that some of them are positive and some have the
negative consequences. Nevertheless, the foreign capital is
interpreted mainly in the positive way. The reason for this is that
the positive effects tend to come to light and emerge
immediately (creation of new jobs positions, improved payment
balance), while negative ones often occur in the longer term
(taking over skilled workers from local companies) and often do
not have a clearly specified link to foreign investors
(Hořejší,
2015). A typical case is the creation of so-called crowding-out
effect where local companies are pushed (crowd) out of the
market by the existence of capital-intensive and mainly
technologically stronger economic entities (Zamrazilová, 2007).
Paradoxically, the local competition may not be liquidated by the
investor's targeted efforts. Foreign presence is sufficient due to
the significant size of the technological gap between foreign
investors and existing local businesses. Expert studies can hardly
quantify this phenomenon, as it is difficult to determine (let
alone quantify or generally quantify) whether a local company
(companies) or industry has disappeared (is in decline) due to the
foreign presence of investors in the local business environment.
These effects are very difficult to quantify due to their
externalities character
(Benáček, 2000) and scientific literature is
therefore forced to ignore them and focus on more quantifiable
indicators. However, these indicators are associated with a short
period (financial resources related to employee education) or
interpret the localization itself (the size of the investment, the
promised number of jobs). These effects have logically positive
character.
Comprehensive evaluation of how foreign companies influence
the local business environment is very complicated due to the
absence of methodology how to complex evaluate the overall
impact in a long run (Camagni, 2009). This absence does not
contribute to resolving the dispute between experts on the
support of foreign capital inflows (Damborsky, Wokoun and
Krejcova, 2013). The system of investment incentives, which
can be requested by both foreign and local companies, causes
disproportions on the market. There is an incentive redistribution
from small businesses that logically cannot meet investment
criteria, towards capital (and as well as technologically) stronger
players. However, the final benefit of localization and attracting
of these large economic entities is uncertain, resp. not yet
quantified. It means that governments spend considerable sums
from public sources` resp. from tax revenues from entities that
cannot apply for investment incentives. The final impact over a
long period of time may be negative or zero for these entities
(Minchung et al., 2019). Then, investment incentives become
completely counterproductive.
More discussed is the situation when companies from countries
with lover economic level gained investment incentives.
In this
case, the difference between the economic levels of both
countries is definitely not negligible (the Czech economy had a
higher economic level compared to China in 2017 by USD
11,553) based on GDP per capita in current prices (World Bank,
2019).
It is a case of Chinese investors. The Chinese capital inflow
changes the territorial structures of capital inflows to the Czech
Republic. In the past, in particular, large investment projects
from technologically and economically more advanced countries
were supported (
Hořejší, 2016).
2 Central Europe: the host market for Chinese investors
In the past decade (from the 2005) Chinese companies have
increasingly targeted Central and Eastern European countries.
China is especially interested in Czech Republic because of its
specific location.
The Czech Republic is one of the most successful Central
European countries in attracting Chinese investment, although
the amount of Chinese investment in 2012 was not significant.
However, the Czech Republic has gradually become one of the
largest FDI recipients together with Poland and Hungary, as well
as Romania and Bulgaria. At the same time, China is one of the
fastest growing investors with potential for further investment in
the country. China is gradually changing the structure of its FDI
and deviating from investing in natural resources in investing in
higher-value technical goods.
Central Europe is well positioned and with stable EU regulatory
framework and it has brought opportunities for growth and
return on investment (De Castro et al, 2017). The Czech
Republic does not benefit only from its geographical location,
but also its industrial tradition and good production network with
other EU countries. China has played a minor role in this
process, but the country's attractiveness is increasing as it is
proactively supported politically and lobbying for Chinese
business activities (Seaman et al. 2017)
2.1 Current situation of the Chinese investment projects
getting the support
There are currenly nine Chinese investment projects that were
granted the state aid in form of the incentives. Total amount of
these investment is 3.63 bil. CZK (excluding reinvesment
projects) and newly created jobs count for 1.565 in total (current
status as at March 31, 2019). In all cases, the final decision from
Czech government was obtained up to one year after submitting
the application. The length of approval process differs among
new companies or expansion of existing businesses. Investing
sectors of Chinese investors can be seen in the table 1 and
description of the companies follows.
Tab. 1: Chinese investment with investment incentives granted
by Czech government
Company name
Sector
Type of
project
Year of aid
granted
decision
Changhong Europe
Electric s.r.o.
electronics and
electrotechnic
Production
2006
SHANGHAI
MALING (CZECH)
a.s.
food industry
Production
2007
SHANGHAI
MALING (CZECH)
a.s.
food industry
Production
2008
Solar Express s.r.o.
electronics and
electrotechnic
Production
2011
YAPP CZECH
manufacture of
Production
2011
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