Today, with this map of Japanese and Russian business communities in Europe, we complete an earlier post about Indian and Chinese presence in European economic affairs (*).
The map would look different if we filtered information according to certain sectors (industry, trade, energy,…) but as it is, what does the picture tell us?
Besides showing the obvious and the well-known (a strong Russian business community in Russia’s traditional zone of influence, for example in the Baltic’s Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia ; a predominance of Russian businessmen in Cyprus international “offshore” financial holdings), it reveals several less expected features.
Firstly, one would expect Germany to be a stronghold of Russian business in Europe, due to the high level of trade between Russia and Germany. It may be so, but while there are many company directors with Russian names, there are even more Chinese, Indian and Japanese businessmen in Germany.
Secondly, there is a clear Japanese preference in favour of Belgium and the Netherlands for Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and as an entry door for trade with Europe.
Thirdly, while Indian and Chinese directors share a similar profile to select European target countries for FDIs and trading, Russian and Japanese businessmen demonstrate more polarization: they generally make different choices.
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(* We show the density of Japanese and Russian company directors expressed relatively to the total density of Japanese, Russian, Indian and Chinese presence, measured using the onomastics of about half a million company directors of the largest companies of all sectors, in the European Union plus Switzerland. Accuracy of name classification software is typically in the range 75%-95%)