Abstract: In the strategic deployment of Japans OFDI, Asian countries(regions)have been playing an important role. The differences in economic environment, political system, and factor endowment among Asian countries affect the formulation and adjustment of internal management plans and foreign investment strategies of Japanese MNCs. In this paper, the micro-data of 1,242 Japanese enterprises carrying out OFDI in 11 countries(regions)in Asia from 2007 to 2018 are adopted to empirically study the OFDI of Japanese MNCs in Asia from the perspective of investment motivation by taking the method of logit model and count model. The results show that firstly, Japan focuses more on Asian countries(regions)with better investment system environment, and obviously prefers market seeking, efficiency seeking, and resource seeking investments, while asset seeking investments are lacking. Secondly, from the perspective of countries, Japan is more market-driven in its investment in China and India, more efficiency-oriented in its investment in the five ASEAN countries, and more concerned about the institutional environment in its investment in the NIEs. Thirdly, from the perspective of industry, Japans OFDI of manufacturing industry is more efficiency-seeking, while that of mining industry is resource-seeking and that of service industry is more sensitive to the market size of a host country.

Key words: Japan, MNCs, OFDI motivation, logit model, negative binomial model