商务英语综合教程（下册）Unit_1_Changes_in_the_Motives_and_Developments教材教学课件.ppt

Unit One ;Introduction; Text ; 1 A number of important, traditionally closed service sectors, such as financial services and transport, were exposed during the 1980s to foreign competition in increasing numbers of countries and opened up to foreign direct investment. This trend is likely to continue in the 1990s as a result of privatization in transport, telecommunications and public utilities. 2 The shifts in the countries and sectors in which foreign direct investments are made are connected with the changes in the motives behind foreign direct investments. ; 3 The main motives for foreign direct investment up to the 1980s were: 1) in industrialized and developed countries to gain access to markets which were virtually impenetrable via exports due to severe protectionism; 2) in developing countries: to mine minerals or to produce commercial agricultural products. Examples are investment in oil recovery in Nigeria, copper mining in Chile and banana production in central America; to use low wages for labor-intensive parts of the production process (Frequently, industries that resort to this approach are designate “footloose” allegedly willing to move quite readily to locations with lower labor costs when local labor costs rise.). ; 4 It was also part of the philosophy of forming conglomerates that prevailed in the 1970s that when a foreign company was taken over, it was mainly its profit-ability that was highlighted and not so much the synergy with the investor’s existing activities. ; 5 Low wages for untrained labor and the availability of raw materials have become ever less important as a result of the development of technologies that increase productivity and save on raw materials. As a result of the progressive liberalization of international trade and direct investment, gaining access to protected markets became a relatively less important motive and using the natural competitive advanta