Given its fragile balance of payments position and urgent need to boost industrial production, Pakistan needs to significantly increase its mobilization of foreign resources. It is crucial to accord high priority to foreign direct investment (FDI). Sections of this report include: importance of FDI in Pakistan; review of FDI policy; trends, issues, FDI, and economic impact of FDI; concentrated FDI in the power sector and its balance of payments implications; and conclusions, lessons, and policy challenges. Charts and tables.
During the 1990s, the governments of South Asian countries acted as ‘facilitators’ to attract FDI. As a result, the inflow of FDI increased. However, to become an attractive FDI destination as China, Singapore, or Brazil, South Asia has to improve the local conditions of doing business. This book, based on research that blends theory, empirical evidence, and policy, asks and attempts to answer a few core questions relevant to FDI policy in South Asian countries: Which major reforms have succeeded? What are the factors that influence FDI inflows? What has been the impact of FDI on macroeconomic performance? Which policy priorities/reforms needed to boost FDI are pending? These questions and answers should interest policy makers, academics, and all those interested in FDI in the South Asian region and in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
This book presents the results of a groundbreaking study on ‘spillovers’ of knowledge and technology from global value-chain oriented foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and discusses implications for policymakers hoping to harness the power of FDI for economic development.
In 2010, the Latin American and Caribbean region showed great resilience to the international financial crisis and became the world region with the fastest-growing flows of both inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI). The upswing in FDI in the region has occurred in a context in which developing countries in general have taken on a greater share in both inward and outward FDI flows. This briefing paper is divided into five sections. The first offers a regional overview of FDI in 2010. The second examines FDI trends in Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic. The third describes the presence China is beginning to build up as an investor in the region. Lastly, the fourth and fifth sections analyze the main foreign investments and business strategies in the telecommunications and software sectors, respectively.
The role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in international capital flows is examined. Theories of the determinants of FDI are surveyed, and the economic consequences of FDI for both host (recipient) and home (investor) nations are examined in light of empirical studies. Policy issues surrounding possible negotiation of a “multilateral agreement on investment” are discussed.
The Foreign Investment Advisory Service, a joint facility of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank, was established to help governments of developing member countries to review and adjust the policies, institutions, and programmes that affect foreign direct investment (FDI). The ultimate purpose of FIAS is to assist member governments to attract beneficial foreign private capital, technology, and managerial expertise.
Is foreign direct investment good for development? Moving beyond the findings of his previous book Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Development? (CGD and IIE, 2005), Theodore H. Moran presents surprisingly good --and startlingly bad --news. The good news highlights how foreign direct investment can make a contribution to development significantly more powerful and more varied than conventional measurements indicate. The bad news reveals that foreign direct investment can also distort host economies and polities with consequences substantially more adverse than critics and cynics have imagined. This book rigorously examines the principal controversies and debates about FDI in manufacturing and assembly, extractive industries, and infrastructure, in light of new evidence and analysis. Written in engaging prose, it identifies how developed and developing countries, multilateral lending agencies, and civil society can work in concert to harness foreign direct investment to promote the growth and welfare of developing countries.
In the 1990s, foreign direct investment began to swamp all other cross-border capital flows into developing countries. Does foreign direct investment support sound development? In particular, does it contribute to poverty reduction?
What makes a country attractive to foreign investors? To what extent do conditions of governance and politics matter? This book provides the most systematic exploration to date of these crucial questions at the nexus of politics and economics. Using quantitative data and interviews with investment promotion agencies, investment location consultants, political risk insurers, and decision makers at multinational corporations, Nathan Jensen arrives at a surprising conclusion: Countries may be competing for international capital, but government fiscal policy--both taxation and spending--has little impact on multinationals' investment decisions. Although government policy has a limited ability to determine patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, political institutions are central to explaining why some countries are more successful in attracting international capital. First, democratic institutions lower political risks for multinational corporations. Indeed, they lead to massive amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, politically federal institutions, in contrast to fiscally federal institutions, lower political risks for multinationals and allow host countries to attract higher levels of FDI inflows. Third, the International Monetary Fund, often cited as a catalyst for promoting foreign investment, actually deters multinationals from investment in countries under IMF programs. Even after controlling for the factors that lead countries to seek IMF support, IMF agreements are associated with much lower levels of FDI inflows.
