Profile of External Investments by the Comecon Countries

Abstract

The new orientation of the external policies of the Comecon countries has given rise to a proliferation of foreign direct investments by Soviet and East European state enterprises. By the early 1980s, these investments had spread on a global scale across a broad spectrum of countries and activities. This chapter will take a comprehensive view of the nature and extent of social multinational enterprise as it appeared after a period of growth of more than two decades, before embarking on more detailed analyses, by sector and by country, in subsequent chapters. A note on the data and methodology underlying the analysis is presented in an Appendix to this book.