International Expansion of Russian Multinationals : A Focus on Home-Country Push Factors, Europe and Five CEE Countries

Russian multinationals play an active role in international capital flows, although, over the past decade, two financial crises have interrupted the upward trend of their outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). This paper focuses on the specific characteristics of Russian OFDI and multinationals in general, in particular regarding their presence in the European Union – Russia's prime export market and the main destination of Russian OFDI – and, more specifically, five EU-member Central and East European states, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Besides official statistics, the research relies on company data gathered to present the activities of Russian multinationals in this region. Among the investment motives, the focus is on home-country push factors, both negative and positive. The paper also asks whether the emergence and presence of Russian multinationals could be explained by using an existing FDI framework