The assessments emphasised the cultural similarity of the countries in our region to the west European countries, relatively low barriers to business activity for West European companies as well as high qualifications of our employees. While comparing the abovementioned countries it has been indicated that the grade for Poland is slightly lower than for the Czech Republic as regards the infrastructure and respect for intellectual property rights. Offshoring in its broader scope constitutes a new idea of innovation in enterprise management 27 . While as a result of production relocation the company may lower its costs substantially, a much more important advantage of offshoring is that it may become an incentive to change production processes. In extreme cases this may lead to a situation where a company divests itself of all processes that have no direct connection with production or services rendered. 23  However, relocation of manufacturing to countries with lower labour costs need not to be a rule. Research by Aubert and Sillar (2005) indicated that between 1995 and 2001 in France less than a half of all relocated jobs (on the offshore basis) in manufacturing were moved to countries with low production costs. According to the authors, such results rather to a motive of enterprise restructuring, whereas the phenomenon of offshoring is limited primarily to large enterprises employing over 500 persons. See P. Aubert and P . Sillar , „Offshoring and Job Losses in French Industry”, April 2005, OECD working paper. 24  OECD, “Growth in Services.
Apart from preferential trade agreements, a factor of vital importance to the liberalisation of global flows of goods are multilateral agreements within the WTO/GATT forum. Thanks to GATT agreements, there has been a sharp reduction in customs tariff rates from ca. 40% after WWII to 6% in the early 1990s and to 4% at the turn of the century 19 . A gradual reduction of barriers to trade is a slow process; however, it brings permanent benefits to each of the interested parties, as it leads to specialisation in production, which brings notable benefits in the form of maintaining a competitive position on the global market. Proofs of growing links among economies can be found e.g. in the world trade statistics, according to which exports of goods and services have increased fivefold since 1980 20 . In 2005, the value of global exports corresponded to 29% of the global GDP, compared to 20% in 1980. This also indicates that trade develops at a much higher rate than the global domestic manufacturing. In the new EU Member States the export-to-GDP ratio has increased by 15 percentage points only over the past 10 years 21 . Changes in the growth rate have been accompanied by changes in the structure of exports, which have been significantly influenced by the foreign direct investment. Specialisation of production, as a prerequisite for competitiveness, leads companies to seek adequate locations allowing them to gain a competitive edge over rival companies.