ABSTRACT
There is a rising interest in the problems of direct foreign investment in manufacturing sectors among advanced industrialised countries. Ever since the ‘oil shock’ in October 1973, this question has been one of the most important issues of consideration in Japan: is it vital for Japanese industries to extend their activities through increased direct investment in the US and European countries and even to set up full-scale production bases there? On the other hand, direct investment in Europe by American enterprises, which has been growing continuously for the last twenty years, is said to have become stagnant while European big multinationals have been rapidly increasing their investments in the US.1
