Introduction

During the last two decades China has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world with an average double-digit rate of growth. The remarkable performance of the Chinese economy during the past decades has significantly affected the strategic positioning of global firms in China. For many foreign investors China is no longer a potential market, but one of the most rapidly expanding poles of industrial development and production and export activity in the world. More and more foreign companies have become convinced that they cannot afford to remain absent from such an important market and have consequently decided to become substantially involved in China by way of foreign direct investment (FDI).