PwC Report: Almost 190 New Multinational Companies to Emerge out of Romania in The Next 15 Years

The competitive landscape is set to be transformed over the next decade as Chinese and Indian multinationals lead the way in seeking new markets abroad, and are joined by an array of companies from Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and South Korea, says a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).

“Romanian companies will be subjected to an increased competition, as the multinational companies from the emerging economies have a much more aggressive approach than the traditional competitors from Western Europe. In order to survive, the Romanian multinational companies must quickly reach a critical mass that will allow them to withstand such a fierce competition. This means not only gaining a strong position on the local market, but also expanding on profitable foreign markets, wherever they may be”, stated Alexandru Lupea (left), Partner, Assurance Services, Leader of the Energy, Utilities and Mining Group with PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania.

The number of companies from emerging markets choosing to set up operations abroad has increased in the last five years, in part due to the rapid pace of globalisation and the revolution in information and communications technologies. This trend is expected to continue over the next 15 years, as new multinationals from emerging economies rise in prominence on the global economic stage.

Some of these new multinationals will become the international powerhouses and will require services all over the world, for example, in order to support their IT and telecoms networks, says the report entitled Emerging multinationals: The rise of new multinational companies from emerging economies.

“More new multinationals are moving straight into developed economies as opposed to setting up their first foreign operation in a neighbouring emerging economy. These new multinationals are increasingly likely to be in business services or higher value-add manufacturing sectors as opposed to the more basic natural resource extraction sectors”, said Alexandru Lupea.

PwC used econometric techniques to project the amount of new multinationals that will arise from a representative sample of 15 emerging economies over the next 15 years: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Ukraine and Vietnam.

India is expected to produce the most new multinational companies, overtaking China as the emerging world’s largest source of new multinationals. Over 2200 Indian companies are projected to open operations outside the country over the next fifteen years. The South American countries in the sample (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) are expected to be a relatively smaller source of new multinational companies while the export-orientated South East Asian countries (Malaysia and Singapore), along with oil-rich Russia and the newly industrialised South Korea, are expected to continue to produce large amounts of new multinationals.