Foreign Companies in South Africa: Entry, Performance and Impact.
Abstract
The report presents detailed results of a survey of 162 foreign firms which entered South Africa for the first time between 1990 and 2000. The survey was carried out between November 2001 and July 2002, and focussed on firms' entry strategies, the performance of their investment based on their expectations at entry, and the impact of the investment on South Africa's economic development. The report presents a descriptive overview of the data produced by the firm survey and has nine sections. The first two sections discuss the population of foreign firms in South Africa and the survey sample respectively. Section C then turns to look at the nature of the foreign investors in South Africa, presenting details of the parent firm characteristics. Section D covers the choice of mode of entry, while Section E extends the discussion of the process of entry to examine the resources identified by firms as critical for their success, and Section F reports firms' perceptions of the South African operating environment - markets for key inputs as well as the official environment - at the time they entered the economy as well as currently. Section G reports on firms' performance in South Africa. Section H assesses the economic impact of foreign firms' presence in South Africa in a number of areas, including exports, market competition, human resource development, technology transfer and Black Economic Empowerment. Section I concludes, setting out some directions for further analysis of the data.
Citation
DRC Working Papers, Foreign Direct Investment in Emerging Markets, Centre for New and Emerging Markets, London Business School, No. 8, London, UK, 73 pp.
Links