Mutual Direct Investments of Russia and EU in Metallurgy

The article is devoted to the analysis of mutual direct investments in Russia and the EU in steel industry and nonferrous metal industry after the beginning of the global financial crisis. The author notes a great importance of the EU market for Russian companies in their foreign expansion. In particular in steel industry the EU market plays a key role as the North American market does. In nonferrous metal industry the importance of the EU market is reduced due to lack of developed raw material sources within the EU and due to the diversification of foreign activity of Russian companies. The author notes that a reduction of mutual direct investments began after 2008. Russian companies have focused their activities on their own enterprises in Russia because of high debt leverage. The crisis has also resulted in an appearance of new crisis strategies of Russian metallurgical companies for European assets. These crisis strategies include sale of assets, suspension of production and strategic partner search. Traditional strategies of foreign investing were relevant during the crisis. The modernization of production was the most applied strategy. Buying up of core assets was also applied. European investments in Russia were made mainly by creating new production capacity frequently including joint ventures with Russian companies. European investors along with investments introduced new technologies and equipment into Russian metallurgy. The article notes that because of the crisis the number of capital investment projects including European companies was reduced. The author notes that the EU will remain the key area for Russian metallurgical companies if the situation in global metallurgical markets will improve and sanctions against Russia will be lifted off. Acknowledgments. The article has been supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project № 14-28-00097 “The optimization of Russian foreign investment ties in the context of deteriorating relations with the EU”).