ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the foreign direct investment (FDI)-related issues in the EU–Japan relationship. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) tend to concentrate more within their home regions, rather than allocate FDI in an equitable way around the world. In the EU, FDI reveals a similar trend to the global FDI developments with regard to both inward and outward FDI, including two peaks around 2000 and 2007 followed by a steep decline. Industrial relations suffer an impact through FDI due to the transfer of job opportunities from home to host economy. The first issue of the EU–Japan relationship is the free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations being agreed to start at the summit meeting in May 2011. Both the EU and Japan consider bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as an important FDI policy objective. The Japanese government sets BITs as one of the main investment policy issues to protect Japanese investment. The EU–Japan FTA should also be assessed from the actual impact on the FDI flow.
