Choix de localisation des entreprises. L’arrivée des firmes chinoises et indiennes en Europe

The article analyzes the choices of location of firms from Emerging economies, i.e. Chinese and Indian firms, towards the developed world, Europe taken as a case study. In doing so it put into question the previous postulates based on the requirement of a competitive gap for the advantage of the foreign investor. As a result the motivations which drive the choice of location for these companies are specific to them whereas the level of development reached by their country is playing a critical role. If two motivations are clearly recognizable – the access to markets and the quest for specific assets – it emerges that the weight of the second is relatively more important for the Chinese firms, especially in the early period (1990-2001), than for the Indian firms. The relative decline of the second motivation during the last period of time for Chinese firms can be explained by learning effects. The whole outcome is however ambivalent for Chinese firms. On one side, it goes against the intuitive thought that the structure and the performance of the Chinese economy is driven by the exports of manufactured goods while Europe is her first export market. On the other one, it buttresses the need of the Chinese firms for specific assets, as for Indian companies but on a lesser extent, to consolidate or even build their capabilities on their national and international markets. Last, the superiority of the access-to-market motivation for Indian firms when they choose Europe stems from their focus on two sectors (data processing and pharmacy).