Les limites de l'investissement direct étranger manufacturier comme moteur de développement économique.. Enseignements tirés de l'étude de deux cas : la filiale maquiladora et Sony Manufacturing UK

Using the analysis of two apparently very different cases, a Taiwanese maquiladora subsidiary of the garment industry (Nien Hsing Textile) in Nicaragua and Sony?s manufacturing subsidiary in Wales (Sony Manufacturing UK), we try to verify the existence of the benefits attributed by many scholars to manufacturing foreign direct investment as engine of development in peripheral territories economies. In each case, we study three specific questions: (1) the technological transfer from the subsidiary, (2) the mobility potential of the manufacturing activities of the subsidiary, and (3) the evolution of the quality of the subsidiary (integration in the territory and complexity of the activities realised) in time. The invalidating similarities found in the two cases cast doubts upon the contribution of this investment to the development potential of the economy of the host territory. More than an economic development of the territory, these two manufacturing subsidiaries seem to have provoked the development of a productive enclave in the territory.