Foreign Investment Strategies in Restructuring Economies: Learning from Corporate Experiences in Chile

(Hardback)

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Restructuring economies in Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere are abandoning their hostility to foreign enterprises and adopting policies to attract international investment. This book examines corporate experiences in Chile, one of the first nations to move successfully from a statist economy to an open market system, using privatisation, debt conversion and liberal trade and investment policies. Drawing from research on over 70 foreign corporations, the book compares investment strategies used to assess risk and exploit business opportunities under conditions of fundamental economic change. Case studies describe how and why firms selected different financing, management, employment, production and marketing approaches in establishing or expanding their operations. After a brief historical review, the book examines key policy decisions in the 1980s that shaped Chile's new economy. Case studies are then analysed by sector, covering mining and energy, nontraditional exports (forestry, fishing and agribusiness), banking and insurance, and other industries including computers, telecommunications, chemicals, electrical goods, automotive products, foods and beverages and pharmaceuticals. Summary chapters relate these learning experiences to broader strategic issues such as ownership and control, financing methods, technology transfer, trade policy, labour relations, taxation, regulatory reform and coordinating global corporate operations. This book presents cumulative learning experiences useful for business executives and public officials who must develop new foreign investment strategies, as well as scholars and students interested in the role of foreign investment in developing countries.

Reviews

The book deserves to be read by both scholars and policymakers working on the postcommunist economic and political transformation.-Journal of East-West Business
This is an extensive survey of foreign investment in Chile that followed the decision of the Pinochet dictatorship to open widely the country's doors to such investment, a policy which generally has continued under the democratic regime of President Patricio Aylwyn since 1990. Kline (currently at Georgetown University, formerly at the Inter-American Development Bank and the UN) provides a short historical survey of foreign investment in Chile, and then sketches the two major legislative measures under which foreign investment has taken place since the 1970s: the Decree Law 600, which established the (very liberal) conditions under which foreign investors could operate, and the so-called Chapter XIX, governing debt-for-equity swaps of the Chilean foreign debt. The volume also includes considerable detail about foreign investment in the various sectors of the Chilean economy since the 1970s, including mining and energy, nontraditional exports (particularly forest, fishing, and agriculture), and financial services, and deals with the impact of recent foreign investment on such aspects as technology transfer, export promotion, import substitution, and labor relations. Finally, the book deals with the implications of the Chilean experience for theoretical and ideological issues raised by foreign investment in developing countries. Surprisingly well written for a technical book, it should interest those concerned with economic development or general Latin American affairs.-Choice
"The book deserves to be read by both scholars and policymakers working on the postcommunist economic and political transformation."-Journal of East-West Business
"This is an extensive survey of foreign investment in Chile that followed the decision of the Pinochet dictatorship to open widely the country's doors to such investment, a policy which generally has continued under the democratic regime of President Patricio Aylwyn since 1990. Kline (currently at Georgetown University, formerly at the Inter-American Development Bank and the UN) provides a short historical survey of foreign investment in Chile, and then sketches the two major legislative measures under which foreign investment has taken place since the 1970s: the Decree Law 600, which established the (very liberal) conditions under which foreign investors could operate, and the so-called Chapter XIX, governing debt-for-equity swaps of the Chilean foreign debt. The volume also includes considerable detail about foreign investment in the various sectors of the Chilean economy since the 1970s, including mining and energy, nontraditional exports (particularly forest, fishing, and agriculture), and financial services, and deals with the impact of recent foreign investment on such aspects as technology transfer, export promotion, import substitution, and labor relations. Finally, the book deals with the implications of the Chilean experience for theoretical and ideological issues raised by foreign investment in developing countries. Surprisingly well written for a technical book, it should interest those concerned with economic development or general Latin American affairs."-Choice

Author Bio

JOHN M. KLINE is Deputy Director of the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Formerly Director of International Economic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, Dr. Kline is the author of International Codes and Multinational Business (Quorum, 1985) and State Government Influence in U.S. International Economic Policy, as well as numerous scholarly articles. He has conducted studies for the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations and the Inter-American Development Bank and is a member of the U.S. State Department's Advisory Committee on International Investment.