Ernst & Young Surveys

forment les bases incontournables de tout débat sur l’avenir.
Les économies avancées s’enfoncent dans la récession et les économies émergentes ralentissent, dans un contexte mondial sans cesse revu à la baisse.
Les plans de relance tentent de mener de front les urgences (crédit et emploi) et le maintien des investissements dans la recherche et l’éducation, tout en préservant les grands équilibres financiers, économiques et sociaux.
Pour 2008, les investisseurs internationaux ont considéré l’Europe occidentale en général, et le site France en particulier, comme des “valeurs-refuge”. Le pragmatisme l’emporte sur l’esprit d’aventure.
Ils y ont maintenu un nombre de projets d’implantation sensiblement équivalent à celui de 2007 mais en réduisant de 11% les créations d’emploi (contre - 2% en Europe occidentale).

Pour sa huitième édition, le Baromètre de l’Attractivité du site France livre des enseignements particuliers : alors que l’impatience des décideurs se faisait chaque année plus forte à l’égard de ses handicaps, en ce début 2009 ils sont 75% à exprimer leur confiance dans les capacités de la France à affronter la crise. Mieux encore, 29% déclarent leur intention d’y développer de nouvelles activités, soit dix points de plus que l’année précédente.

Dans cette tourmente, les entreprises sécurisent le présent et reconsidèrent la validité de leurs choix d’implantation, c’est aussi un des enseignements de nos baromètres sur l’Attractivité de l’Europe et ’Attractivité du site France.

Quelle sera leur attitude au sortir de la crise ? Trop tôt pour le dire car difficile d’envisager dès maintenant les mutations qui se seront opérées et la nouvelle donne des marchés futurs. La France devra, pour sa part, préserver les qualités de son modèle et le faire évoluer selon les exigences d’un monde interdépendant, c’est-à-dire renforcer son indépendance énergétique, développer le dynamisme de ses régions et y faire naître des métropoles européennes, veiller à la diversité de son économie, éduquer ses nouvelles générations dans une réelle culture de l’innovation.

La vocation de ce Baromètre annuel est de confronter au plus près les opinions des décideurs internationaux sur la qualité et l’avenir du site France et leurs décisions effectives. Si en ce début 2009, les 206 répondants du Baromètre 2009 sont restés indécis, ils ont su néanmoins se montrer clairs quant aux enjeux du site France pour défendre sa place de 6ème économie d’un monde chaque jour plus concurrentiel.

impacting businesses around the world: difficulty in accessing finance - despite an unprecedented fall in indicative interest rates, slumping demand, slowing economic growth or contraction, rising unemployment, weak consumer confidence and falling profits.

As a consequence, we are seeing a rise in the number of stressed companies around the world: a record number of companies are expected to go bankrupt in 2009. In Europe and in the US, 260,000 business insolvencies are expected. More companies are likely to breach their loan covenants in 2009 as the slowdown intensifies, leading to a surge in company restructurings or failures.

Foreign investors - companies acquiring assets and/or expanding operations in international markets - are waiting for the dust to settle after the demolition of financial services on which they used to rely. They are driving blind with no visibility on the road they used to follow. Yet 74% of international business leaders have put their immediate confidence in Western Europe’s ability to address the economic crisis. They’d sooner stay at home than venture abroad. Emerging regions are not providing the absolutely safe ground international investors are looking for. Yet, the engine of growth in the global economy is moving east, propelled by a combination of commodity production and the advent of a new Asian middle class. Emerging market multinationals are becoming global champions in many industries. In this world in transformation, new power brokers (sovereign wealth funds, private equity, hedge funds) have taken off, but the financial crisis is altering their trajectories.

In this troubled and fascinating year, Ernst & Young’s 2009 European attractiveness survey reports on the 3,718 mobile capital investments made in 42 European countries by multinationals, both large and small, which have created more than 148,000 jobs. These foreign investors have pursued locations with supply chain potential, competitive costs and advantageous resources, attractive national and local tax structures, business incentives and technology clusters.

How were European countries affected by the crisis and in which sectors ? How are business leaders looking at Europe and other global regions to tackle the crisis? What are their longer-term prospects - if any? What is expected from governments, national and local, to help businesses get through the current situation and beyond?

These issues form the core of Ernst & Young’s 2009 European attractiveness survey, based on a two-fold, original methodology that reflects, first, Europe’s real attractiveness for foreign direct investors, based on Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor (EIM), and second the ‘perceived’ attractiveness of Europe and its competitors by a representative panel of 809 international decision-makers.

In 2008, Ernst & Young took a vital step by bringing together 60,000 people in 87 national practices across Europe, the Middle East and India. As we present our seventh European attractiveness survey, we would like to extend our gratitude to the thousands of decision-makers and Ernst & Young professionals who have taken the time to share their thoughts with us.

and the Greater Paris Investment Agency have performed a unique survey measuring the attractiveness of major worldwide capitals.

This survey quantifies the reality of the attractiveness of worldwide metropolises. It focuses on Paris and its European counterparts and analyses the image of these cities, as perceived by the 508 international decision-makers surveyed by the CSA institute.

which addresses Europe’s competitive position on the global scene, the very latest trends of foreign investment into Europe and the vision of international business leaders on Europe’s attractiveness for their operations.

comprising 17 countries of the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean (France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria). It is based on interviews with 315 international decision-makers from all sectors, origins and economic models.

Is Europe really renewable? What are the tools that will enable Europe to flourish in a globalising world? How do companies act and adapt to this enlarged world of business? Are there significant trends within the growing sectors and more challenged industries? What is the sustainability of Europe’s social, economic and environmental models?

At what pace will Europe be able to integrate the reforms necessary to maintain its place amongst the major world economies? The answers to these questions form the core of the survey.

Does Europe still have an industrial future? Are developing countries in the process of catching up with their Western neighbours or are they, in fact, positioning themselves as their permanent, strongest competitors? Does the United States still have the role of a major power? Should we be banking on a Japanese renaissance? As for Russia, Turkey and Brazil, what role will these emerging economies play in decisions by American, European and Asian investors? In short, what will be the new landscape of global investment in 2005?