GVCs in Central Europe – a
perspective of automotive sector after COVID-19
Research
and teaching project co-financed by the Visegrad Fund The
team of the Institute of International Economics implements this project in
cooperation with scientists from:
University
of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia
Ekonomická
univerzita v Bratislave (EUBA)
University
of Economics, Prague, Czechia
Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze
(VŠE)
Centre
for Economic and Regional Studies (CERS) in Budapest, Hungary
Közgazdaság-
és Regionális Tudományi Kutatóközpont (CERS)
Project details:
The V4 countries are highly
integrated within global value chains (GVCs); their backward participation
decisively exceeds the forward one. They are mostly involved in activities
generating low value added and faced with long-term stagnation in creating
value. This especially concerns automotive industries. In order to alter the
current status quo and gain benefits from participation in GVCs, it is
necessary for the V4 to foster innovation abilities and stabilize business
climate. The outbreak of COVID-19 posed both threats (disruption in production
processes, demand shocks) and opportunities (re-definition of MNEs policies on
FDI localization) that need to be investigated. Moreover, results of previous
studies should be revised. We intend to answer the following questions:
- To what extent do V4 companies participate in the
automotive GVCs?
- What are the likely impacts of COVID-19 on GVC
participation of V4 businesses (i.a. SMEs)?
- How to improve the position of national SMEs in
automotive GVCs?
International trade in post COVID-19
era will probably have to face some unique deglobalization effects of the
previous GVCs expansion. UNCTAD (2020) stresses strengthened regional value
chains as a priority to mitigate the consequences of pandemic and
deglobalization effects. The said industry turns out to be seriously affected
by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using the latest data and trends,
our project not only brings scientific results confronted with research on a
more general level (EU, euro area, etc.), but also in terms of improving the
place in GVC, shares success stories and lessons learned from the neighboring
countries of the CEE region.
In addition, we intend to
internationalize the results of educational processes at universities through
guest lectures, a set of thematic case studies, and the creation of a new
research network.