国家特定优势下的中国OFDI区位选择偏好——基于企业投资动机和能力的实证检验

Chinese OFDI Location Preferences with Country-specific Advantages:An Empirical Analysis Based on Firms'Investment Motivation and Capability

自2003年以来,中国OFDI区位选择稳定地集中在三类国家或地区,分别为自然资源丰裕但具备一定经济风险的国家或地区、廉价劳动力丰裕的发展中国家或地区以及技术先进的发达国家。这是因为国家特定优势令中国OFDI在区位选择方面呈现出特殊偏好:中国OFDI偏好自然资源、廉价劳动力、战略资产这三类资源禀赋丰裕的国家或地区。自然资源寻求型OFDI对东道国或地区经济风险偏好相对较强;廉价劳动力寻求型OFDI选择地理距离较近东道国或地区的偏好减弱;东道国或地区是否具备相应的国际化经验,成为战略资产丰裕东道国或地区吸引中国战略资产寻求型OFDI的关键因素。

Since 2003, Chinese outward foreign direct investment（OFDI） location choice has focused on three groups of host countries or regions, namely： countries or regions rich in natural resources but with high risk, developing countries or regions with abundant cheap labor, and highly developed countries or regions with plentiful sophisticated technologies. In order to realize the two national strategic goals-resource security and industrial structure adjustment, the Chinese government resorts to the twisted domestic financing system to grant preferential loan to the OFDI industries seeking SOEs （state-owned enterprises） to increase their investment capability in those countries or regions where economic risk is relatively high. Also, the Chinese government has actively promoted the establishment of foreign economic and trade cooperation zones in both Asian and African developing countries, improved the local supporting industries, and facilitated traditional Chinese manufacturing enterprises in their search of cheap labor in Asian-African countries to exert their industrial agglomeration advantages.Furthermore, the Chinese government has issued export-oriented policies and the foreign investment policies to increase the internationalization experience of Chinese firms and to promote their investment capability in the host countries or regions. The above-mentioned are the mechanism of how“country-specific advantage”influences Chinese OFDI location choice. This paper examines Chinese OFDI location choice from 2003 to 2010, and finds that Chinese OFDI does prefer countries or regions which have plenty of natural resources, cheap labor and/or strategic resources. In addition, with country-specific advantages, Chinese OFDI which seeks natural resources has stronger preference for countries or regions with high economic risk; for the OFDI which seeks cheap labor has less preference for host countries or regions of close geographic distance;and the internationalization experience becomes the key attraction for Chinese OFDI seeking strategic capital. The highlights of this paper lie in three aspects. Firstly, for the empirical model, this paper turns Buckley＇s generalized FDI model into one that can explain different OFDI location choices by integrating the factors affecting investment motivation with the factors affecting investment capability. Secondly, to explain where the ownership advantage of Chinese OFDI firms comes from, this paper embeds Chinese OFDI into China＇s macro-economic development background, relying on country-specific advantages to distinguish three different types of ownership advantage. Thirdly, to discover the unique Chinese OFDI location preferences, this paper finds that Chinese OFDIs prefer to invest in high-risk countries such as Iran or Iraq, that driven by the search for both natural resources and cheap labor, Chinese OFDI to Africa has surged, and that Chinese OFDI which seeks strategic resources tends to invest in countries or regions where China has had internationalization experience before, such as Japan and South Korea.