| La Lettre du GERPISA | no 127 (decembre 1998) |
To those journalists who question whether or not some automobile firm directors have committed an error by investing in certain emerging countries, the latter generally respond that they do not invest in the short but rather in the long-term. This response implies that emerging countries actually in crisis will necessarily come out of it, experience economic recovery, and witness a return to its previous growth levels in automobile demand. However, several points are to be underlined which cast doubt on this reassuring prognosis. Indeed, the return of growth requires a certain number of conditions which are not easy to unite.
Exportations, the motor of growth in numerous emerging countries, could not take off as rapidly as expected. The favorable balance of trade in some of these countries corresponds more to a decrease in their importations and not to a spurt in their exports. Diminishing high debt levels and liquidating bad debts, over time if need be, will continue to have an impact for many years to come on the revenue of these countries. Regulations that certain governments would like to impose in the future on capital circulation and exchange rates could, if implemented, limit the risk of repeating crises underway since July 1997.However, they will not suffice in providing emerging countries with thenecessary means to fully recover. Indeed, these countries will have even more difficulty finding these means in light of changes in international relations.
Since the implosion and profound evolution of Communist regimes, the United States (and a few other industrialized nations following in their footsteps) modified their attitude regarding emerging countries, particularly those in Southeast Asia. In the past, industrialized countries tolerated protectionist measures on the part of emerging countries, and even generously opened up their markets to them so that they would not completely fall under Communist influence. Today, and long before the crisis came along, emerging countries are required to abolish the different barriers they had previously established as well as advantages for local firms, especially in the automobile industry. This form of pressure has not ceased, on the contrary as the last APEC gathering suggests, despite the weakening of emerging countries. Reactions came quickly, certain countries envisioning solutions of national or regional preference thus far prohibited. Supposing that they succeed, national or regional growth globalization will require defining new priorities, favoring other activity sectors, constructing new political arrangements, inventing new social rules, and moreover implementing new forms of national revenue distribution, a less unstable and unequal one. In short, all this will take time. Indeed, we are witnessing a recomposition of the world which is far from being complete.
Globalization strategies and trajectories of firms in the automobile industry have anticipated new worlds whose advent is uncertain. It is important to analyze the trajectories of new areas in the automobile industry, how their insertion in international relations evolves, the transformation of their growth modes and revenue redistribution policies, their needs for mobility to evaluate the pertinence of globalization choices made by automobile firms, so as to begin to comprehend adaptations underway. This is the object of GERPISA's next international colloquium, our seventh one. A call for papers has been sent to all GERPISA members and can also be found on our web page. It was prepared and written much earlier this year to allow for more time in drafting proposals and examining them.