ATTRACTING FDI TO THE VISEGRAD GROUP COUNTRIES

In the article, we have made attempt to identify factors determining the investment attractiveness of the New EU Member States using the Visegrad Group countries as examples. We engaged several groups of determinants of the investment climate connected, inter alia, with overall economic performance of the country, transport infrastructure, labour market situation, the size of the domestic market and business environment, household affluence, availability of State aid and investment incentives, IT advancement or corruption. Some of them have turned out to be statistically significant for the inflow of foreign direct investments into the Visegrad Group countries and, more broadly, to the so called new Member States of the European Union. This study is structured as follows. First, it explores the existing literature on FDI definition and main effects of its inflow into the host country. Subsequently, we discuss the investment attractiveness and its determinants in theory and based on empirical studies. Then we discuss investment attractiveness of New Member States of the European Union in selected international rankings, paying special attention to the positions occupied by the four analysed countries. The final part studies the correlation between selected variables characteristic of investment attractiveness and the inflow of foreign investment. The study is based on statistical methods (Spearman's rank correlation and Pearson correlation). Lastly, we present the key conclusions. They demonstrated that factors important for the inflow of FDI are: infrastructure, market size, availability of suppliers, subcontractors, business partners and State aid schemes, including resources from the European Union budget.