Introduction: Japan and the European Periphery

Abstract

Europe’s peripheral regions offer a wide variety of manufacturing environments to the foreign investor. In the case of investment by Japanese firms, which began cautiously at the end of the 1960s, this has been reflected in the uneven distribution of subsidiaries. Some countries and regions have been disproportionately successful in encouraging Japanese manufacturers to establish assembly and manufacturing plants. Others, particularly those areas which have made little effort to promote themselves, have received few if any Japanese projects.