The investment promotion puzzle remains unsolved. Nearly every country in the world has established an investment promotion agency (IPA) to attract and retain foreign direct investment (FDI) in both greater quantities and of higher “quality.” Meanwhile, the literature has been virtually silent on investment promotion and its effects on FDI. As a result, we know little about what such agencies look like in different countries, what they do, how they do it, and whether and to what extent they make a difference. How to Solve An Investment Promotion Puzzle aims to fill in this gap by providing detailed information on the organization, functions and activities, and operational modalities of IPAs across over 50 countries in LAC and OECD, distilling similarities and differences and creating a new basis for peer-to-peer benchmarking and analysis of their impact. As such, it can serve as a useful guide to professionals and policymakers interested in designing better policies for FDI.
Tajikistan has identified Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction as a critical component of its national development strategy, which could contribute to the achievement of several policy goals, including private sector growth, job creation, and economic diversification. As the COVID-19 pandemic has increased competition for FDI, the role of investment promotion agencies (IPAs) is growing around the world.
The FDI Qualities Review of Croatia provides policy recommendations on the design and implementation of a new strategic framework for investment promotion and facilitation in Croatia. It provides an assessment of how foreign direct investment (FDI) contributes to sustainable development, including productivity and innovation, job quality and skills development, decarbonisation and regional development.
Middle East and North Africa Investment Policy Perspectives highlights the considerable progress in investment policies made by the region’s governments over the past decade. Yet, the reform momentum needs to be sustained and deepened for the benefits of investment to be shared with society at large and for growth to be sustainable, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global economic upheaval.
International investment agreements (IIAs) have the potential to mobilise sustainable investment. This report discusses the rationale for including provisions on sustainable investment in IIAs – addressing issues such as policy coherence, stakeholder awareness, and investment promotion and facilitation – and clarifies their alignment with international standards, such as the OECD FDI Qualities Recommendation. The report also discusses how such provisions can be implemented at the domestic level and analyses potential cooperation tools to support implementation.
The Global Investment Competitiveness Report 2019-2020 provides novel analytical insights, empirical evidence, and actionable recommendations for governments seeking to enhance investor confidence in times of uncertainty. The report's findings and policy recommendations are organized around "3 ICs" - they provide guidance to governments on how to increase investments' contributions to their country's development, enhance investor confidence, and foster their economies' investment competitiveness. The report presents results of a new survey of more than 2,400 business executives representing FDI in 10 large developing countries: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. The results show that over half of surveyed foreign businesses have already been adversely affected by policy uncertainty, experiencing a decrease in employment, firm productivity, or investment. Foreign investors report that supporting political environments, stable macroeconomic conditions, and conducive regulatory regimes are their top three investment decision factors. Moreover, the report's new global database of regulatory risk shows that predictability and transparency increase investor confidence and FDI flows. The report also assesses the impact of FD! on poverty, inequality, employment, and firm performance using evidence from various countries. It shows that FDI in developing countries yields benefits to their firms and citizens-including more and better-paid jobs-but governments need to be vigilant about possible adverse consequences on income distribution. The report is organized in S chapters: Chapter 1 presents the results of the foreign investor survey. Chapter 2 explores the differential performance and development impact of greenfield FDI, local firms acquired by multinational corporations {i.e. brownfield FDI), and domestically-owned firms using evidence from six countries. Chapter 3 assesses the impact of FDI on poverty, inequality, employment and wages, using case study evidence from Ethiopia, Turkey and Vietnam. Chapter 4 presents a new framework to measure FDI regulatory risk that is linked to specific legal and regulatory measures. Chapter S focuses on factors for increasing the effectiveness of investment promotion agencies.
This book is the first to systematically map the last step of the foreign investor’s journey, usually referred to as post-investment, aftercare or business retention and expansion. It provides a wide range of approaches and strategies for host economies to better retain foreign investors, encourage follow-on expansions and achieve greater local economic embeddedness through a multi-stakeholder dialogue, leading to improvement of the overall business climate. Global foreign direct investments reached US$1.5 trillion in 2019, but this figure reduced by over 42% in 2020, due to the pandemic. Against this backdrop, retaining established investors became even more important. Numerous organisations all over the world are dedicated to attracting foreign companies to invest in their markets. Facilitating this effort is a dynamic and competitive industry that involves international organisations supporting capacity building, think tanks, academia and consultants. However, once foreign companies decide to invest, a critical question arises: how can host economies grow and retain these foreign investments? Many host governments could do much better, as there is very little post-investment support for these foreign companies to help them grow their businesses throughout different stages of investment, business and economic cycles. This is where aftercare comes in. In this book, the authors include diverse examples from around the world to demonstrate aftercare best practices in action. This book is an essential read for all public administration staff related to FDI attraction and promotion, practitioners in the private sector and FDI consultants. It will also be of great interest to multilateral organisations seeking to organise seminars and training courses for capacity building. The book will also benefit researchers, academics and postgraduate students of international relations, foreign trade and internationalisation. For further information, see www.aftercareexplained.com.
Georgia’s reform trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. In less than two decades, successive structural, regulatory and economic reforms have propelled Georgia from one of the poorest post-Soviet states to an upper-middle income economy.
Thirty years after the region embarked on large-scale liberalization, trade policy could have been expected to become all but irrelevant. Instead, a mismatch between expectations and what could realistically be delivered set the stage for much of the disappointment, skepticism, and fatigue regarding trade policy in the region, particularly in the early 2000s. By setting the bar unrealistically high, governments and analysts made trade policies an easy target for special interests that were hurt by liberalization and for those ideologically opposed to free trade. The most immediate victims were the more tangible growth and welfare gains, whose relevance was lost amid the noise of grandiose visions.
