Foreign Capital Originating from the EU in Investment and Trade Activities of Polish Regions

Foreign capital infl ow is viewed as a driving force of economic growth and development. To a large extent, the effects it may potentially produce depend on the location choice or, in other words, on the economic advancement of the region in question, available skills on the labour market, and the quality of infrastructure. Capital fl ows usually lead to the intensifi cation of foreign trade, however, the ultimate potential outcomes of social and economic transformation within a given territory depend on the structure of trade fl ows. In relation to the above, this paper is motivated by the wish to grasp the pattern of foreign investment location choices (paying special attention to investors from other EU Member States) and their basic effects on the internationalisation of regions in the light of public interventions admissible in Poland. To this end, a statistical analysis of the following data will be carried out into: a) the evolution in the location pattern observed for companies with foreign capital based in Polish voivodeships (NUTS-2) in the period 2004–2017 and b) their foreign trade performance. Statistical analyses have led to the conclusion that foreign capital not only targeted better-developed regions of the country (even though their State aid offer is more limited) as the location for its investment but also companies established in these locations as a result of such investments are more strongly engaged in international trade (and are affi liates within the organisational structure of a single business entity) * Adam A. Ambroziak – SGH – Warsaw School of Economics, e-mail: adam.ambroziak@sgh.waw.pl, ORCID: 0000-0002-4618-8497. 1 This paper is a result of statutory research of the Collegium of World Economy, SGHWarsaw School of Economics 2018, conducted by the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration and co-fi nanced with funds provided by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.