The UK Department of Trade and Industry - Term Paper Example

The Single Market Programme and the Euro The Euro had its roots from the market integration of the European Union. The Single Market Programme (1987-1992) involved the market integration of European Union member countries primarily to create an upsurge in foreign direct investment. The integration was based on the following premises: 1) the increase in the size of the market due to regional integration results to larger scale investment that would not have been profitable in member states’ national markets and 2) regional integration is can lead to an increased economic growth rate and foreign direct investment. Policy instruments which Member States had previously employed to manage their economies were no longer available to the EU members as per agreement. These policies were previously designed to protect the local market and include import controls, export subsidies, devaluation of national currencies to regional and sectoral subsidies and the strategic use of public procurement and the employment buffers of public-service industries(European Parliament, 1996). The free movement of goods, services, capital and labour which resulted from the Single Market Programme meant that the member state would be constrained from imposing increases in taxes and regulation which would surely reduce benefits due to increase domestic production costs. To facilitate further trade, the European Union embarked on a venture of establishing a single currency for its members. The result of the EU monetary union was the euro. This currency is currently used by Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Monaco, San Marino while the Vatican City are licensed to issue and use the euro (UK DTI). The United Kingdom however refrained from joining the venture. It would be the interest of this paper to explore whether this move by UK affected its foreign direct investments economy due to its refraining from a supposedly beneficial single currency. It will also delve, to a limited degree, in the effects of EU enlargement in the UK’s FDI. Business Aversion: The Case for Toyota and Nissan In the year 2000, the United Kingdom was threatened with pullouts from major industry players. Industrialists, one after the other, have warned that unless the UK joins Euroland, they will be forced to move their operations out of the country. One of the most prominent of this pro-Euro group is the Nissan Motor Company (UK) which manufactures automobiles from its plant in Sunderland. In April 2000, John Cushnaghan, managing director of Nissan (UK) announced that the high value of the pound was imposing an "unsupportable burden" brought about by exchange rates fluctuations. By May of the same year, the company claimed the strength of the Sterling against the Euro necessitated the need to cut costs by 30 percent. This loss, according to them, could force the company to transfer the production of the next generation of the Micra to be built in French and Spanish Factories transferring a £150 million investment (North, 2005). Another case would be that of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) LTD which required its British suppliers to use euro for its financial transactions with the company. The move was brought about by the 1999 operating loss in British operations (BBC, 2000). The requirement, Toyota claims, would reduce the risk to the company that it could lose money when converting euros to sterling in order to pay British suppliers (CNN, 2000). Toyota (UK) has a passenger car plant in Derbyshire producing Avensis and Corolla with an initial investment of £1.1billion. It also has an Engine Plant in North Wales with an initial investment of £400m. (Toyota Online, 2006) Toyota has also expressed its propensity to shop around in euro-friendly countries for cheaper goods if the pound remained high. Yoshio Ishizaka, a senior managing director for Toyota, said his company would strive to reduce costs by buying more from suppliers in pro-euro countries. (BBC, 2000) The two companies are only two of the growing list of industrial players who have expressed their resentment over UK’s vacillation of whether to join Euro or not. Some industrial analysts argue that Nissan is only using the Euro issue as an excuse to transfer its operations in France or Spain because Renault, a French Motor Group and Nissan Europe’s owner, can benefit from the tax cuts offered by the French and Spanish governments. However, even if such is the case, if UK only joined EuroLand then Nissan and other companies could not have used this argument. Looking at the bigger context, we find that the main issue revolves around “currency adjustment risks”. The dominance of the Sterling over the Euro makes the United Kingdom unsuitable as an operations base because of the uncertainty in exchange rates. For example, the appreciation of the Sterling and depreciation of the Euro translates to increase in costs because it will take more euros to pay British suppliers. If Euro was used, then the fluctuations would have been eliminated and costs remains fixed. But is exchange rates the major determining factor in the volume of Foreign Direct Investments? Remaining Steadfast: Britain Holds its Grounds Despite the aversion of Toyota and other businesses to continue/establish operations in the UK, the country has attracted more investments from around the world than Germany, France, and Italy combined as Figure 1 suggest: Fig. 1 Country Market Share (Ernst and Young, 2004) According to Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor, the number of foreign direct investments in the UK in 2003 was 453 investments (up from 370 in 2002) with Euro countries such as Germany and Italy continuing to see a fall in the number of investments. Non EU Countries such as the Nordic countries like Denmark and Sweden also performed well, exhibiting an aggregate growth of 15% over 2002. Aggregate investment into the euro-zone was stable, whereas the three non-euro-zone members of the EU (Denmark, Sweden and the UK) saw an increase in their project numbers (Ernst and Young, 2005). The main reason why the UK still remains as the forerunner in FDIs is that most of the trade was in dollars and not in Euros. A review of imports and exports statistics shows that 2/3 of the imports are invoiced using either pounds or dollars with euro constituting only about a quarter in euros. Three-quarters of exports invoices also use either pounds or dollars with only about a fifth invoiced in euros. Also, the pound has been more stable as compared to the euro. Replacing the pound with euro would only place the UK, with large commitments in America, in a losing position since the Euro is much more volatile against the dollar (New Frontiers Foundation, 2005). Furthermore, Japanese investments accounts for less than five percent of investment in the UK. Most of the FDIs entering the UK come from US investment which is double the amount that Germany, France, and Italy combined invest in Britain. The US also accounts for far more new investment projects than the main EU countries and tends to be in those areas that will expand in the medium-term such as software rather than decline-such as car manufacturing (New Frontiers Foundation, 2005). This market characteristic only goes to show that the argument that the UK should adapt the euro because it would benefit from the elimination of exchange rate risks is unfounded and illusory. Since foreign direct investments come mostly from the United States, it would be unwise to use a currency (euro) which is more prone to exchange rates fluctuations. In the foregoing discussion, we can rightly surmise that keeping the pound is not the main determinant of the volume of foreign direct investments. The main key threats lies in a combination of increased domestic regulation and taxes, increased EU regulation and collapsing education standards while Asian countries improve standards and universities (Asian countries are currently the focus of FDI’s especially China). Even Fujio Cho, the President of Toyota declared in 2004 acknowledged that it was “of little relevance whether the UK joins the euro”. According to him, what is more important is that they have already established major engine and assembly plants in the UK and that domestic policies and regulations were very accommodating. Nissan also decided to produce the new generation of Micra in its Sunterland plant after the government gave them billions in government grant (BBC, 2004). EU Enlargement Although the European Union is poised to increase in its sphere of influence, it is projected that the EU’s share of global GDP will nearly half by 2050 –falling from 18 percent now to just 10 percent by the middle of century (see Fig. 2): Fig 2. Share of Glbal GDP projections ( European Commission in New Frontiers 2006, p.8) The graph shows that still developing countries are poised to dominate the global and no enlargement can ever hinder this from happening ( the EU portion also includes the GDP of the United Kingdom). Even if the European Union enlarges itself and dissolve trade barriers between European countries (reducing manufacturing costs and tariffs), the changes would be insufficient to match the cheap manufacturing and labor costs in countries such as China and India. Companies are more keen to place a major portion of their supply chain to these developing countries as the costs is far more lower as compared to the costs of services in the European domain. References: BBC News online (2000) . UK Toyota sparks new euro row. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2006 from www.bbc.com BBC Online (2004). Toyota President Supports the Pound. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2006 from www.bbc.com CNN online (2000) . Toyota fuels UK Euro debate. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2006 from www.cnn.com Ernst & Young European Investment Monitor (2004). FDI Europe. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2006 from www.ey.com Ernst & Young European Investment Monitor (2005)UK and France lead recovery in European foreign direct investment. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2006 from ww.ey.com European Parliament and Council (1996) Summary: THE IMPACT AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SINGLE MARKET . Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and Council. Retrieved Nov. 20,2006 from www.dti.gov.uk New Frontiers Foundation (2005). UK-EU TRADE AND INVESTMENT: INTRA-EU TRADE HAS SHRUNK SINCE THE LAUNCH OF THE SINGLE MARKET, AND UK-EU EXPORTS ARE 49% OF TOTAL. Retrieved Dec.1, 2006 from www.new-frontiers.org North, Richard (2005). Nissan and the Euro. Retrieved Nov. 30,2006 from www.official-document.co.uk Toyota Online (2006). Toyota European Manufacturing. Retrieved Dec. 1, 2006 from www.toyota.com UK Department of Trade and Industry(2006). WORKING WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION. A practical guide to the EU. London: DTI. Retrieved Nov. 20,2006 from ww.dti.gov.uk Read More