Transnational corporations’ strategies and foreign trade patterns in MERCOSUR countries in the 1990s

Market-seeking strategies predominate in the recent FDI boom in MERCOSUR countries. In the trade performance of transnational corporation affiliates a sort of ‘asymmetric integration’ is clearly visible: they produce for the internal market and, to some extent, for the regional one, while import inputs and final goods from developed countries (and a significant part of these trade flows is intra-firm). Thus, even if affiliates obtained productivity gains in the 1990s, they have not yet been reflected in a significant increase in exports, and even less in extra-regional exports. Hence, the foreign direct investment boom seemingly has not yet contributed to a better insertion of MERCOSUR countries into the world economy.