AUTOMOTIVE STUDY 2025 / Šaroch (ed.) et al.

called core countries with a dominant position in trade relations, innovation capabilities and ownership of production capacity. Core countries are not only major exporters but also control production and innovation in other countries, giving them considerable in uence over global production networks (GPNs). ey are characterized by a high degree of decision-making autonomy and a low level of foreign control over their automotive industry. Of the V4 countries analyzed, the Czech Republic is classi ed as an unstable semi-periphery, while Slovakia, Poland and Hungary fall into the periphery category. Among them, Poland is considered a stable periphery, while Slovakia and Hungary are unstable peripheries. An unstable semi-periphery, such as the Czech Republic, uctuates between core and periphery characteristics, re ecting its transitory economic role and occasional instability in maintaining higher value-added activities. In contrast, a stable periphery such as Poland consistently serves as a production center for core countries, focusing on low-value-added activities and maintaining a dependent but stable economic role. Slovakia and Poland are unstable peripheries, indicating their dependence on external investments and limited control over production capacity and innovations. ey are characterized by a higher degree of volatility related to changes in investment policies of foreign investors or industrial restructuring. Comparing the evolution of the nancial performance of the automotive industry in the V4 countries (semi-periphery and periphery) with that of Germany as a traditional core country allows to assess whether and to what extent these regions are moving towards the core over time, thereby revealing their economic trajectory and potential transition towards a higher level of integration in global production networks. 4.2 Data and Methodology is chapter of the study assesses the nancial performance of companies in the automotive sector in the V4 countries and Germany over the past decade (2014 to 2023). e data used for the assessment was generated from the Orbis - Bureau van Dijk database. e basic dataset consists of companies located in the countries under study whose predominant activity is classi ed as NACE Rev. 2: 29 - Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers (see Figure 4.1 below). A total of 29,070 companies located in the EU-27 countries were analyzed, including 3,803 companies located in Germany, 1,283 companies located in the Czech Republic, 566 companies located in Hungary, 2,041 companies located in Poland and 2,154 companies located in Slovakia. e data used in this part of the study is based on the available results for all companies classi ed in NACE Rev. 2: 29 - Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers. For this reason, the results presented may also naturally deviate from the conclusions presented by the Czech Automotive Industry Association (AutoSAP), which is based on data from its membership base. As already stated in the introduction, the nancial performance metric called EVA ( economic value added) and its decomposition into sub-components (value drivers) is used to measure and analyze nancial performance. EVA is a measure of the economic pro t generated by a company (or, in this case, by all companies in the sector) over a one year period, which represents the addition (or loss) to the value created by a company for its owners (shareholders). EVA is the result of operating pro tability adjusted for the

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