日本企業海外進出の現状と問題点

抄録

Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased rapidly since 1972 when the outward investment was liberalized.
In the beginning, Japan's overseas manufacturing investment was mainly placed on labor-intensive, traditional light manufacturing industries such as textiles and home electric products in South East Asia.
After that, technology-intensive industries (such as automobiles and electronics) have entered into US and other developed countries for their overseas production. While these attempts have been made mostly in response to protectionism overseas, more recently manufacturer's intention for international production is accelerated by high appreiciation of yen Thus more and more Japanese manufacturers seem to be multinatinalized.
At present there are many arguments on the nature, prospects or appraisal of Japanese FDI. Among them I like to pick up three major points
1) Are there good reasons to believe that the manufacturing investment in the developed countries like US. is promising and/or favorable to international trade?
2) Does the FDI contribute to the reduction of trade surplus of Japan?
3) Is the Japanese style management applicable to foreign countries?
On these points I am not so optimistic as opinions often found in the papers and magazines Also we have to pay more attention to the investment frictions in the host countries