21/09/08

Upcoming Events

The overall objective of this workshop is to further develop and enhance aftercare strategies and to provide concepts and input for IPAs and IPIs to serve and assist their clients in making competitive investment decisions. Participants will be provided with conceptual frameworks as well as some illustrations of investment promotion strategies and case studies that can be used to inform the design and management of their own aftercare strategies and investor servicing strategies. At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to further develop investment promotion strategies for attracting FDI and tap into the market of existing investors who are increasingly facing more complex globalization strategies.

Deadline for registration postponed to Tuesday, the 4th of November 2008.

For more information, please contact Mrs. Alexandra Tokareva at: alexandra.tokareva@waipa.org or at the following telephone number: +41 22 797 26 63.

WAIPA Workshop on “Effective Investment Facilitation”, 11-13 November 2008, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago

WAIPA in partnership with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Trinidad & Tobago (MTI) and FDI Intelligence is organizing from 11 to 13 November 2008 in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, a regional training workshop on 'Effective Investment Facilitation'. The training aims to provide participating IPAs officials with tools and techniques to enhance capacities for effective investment facilitation. Topics covered by the programme include recent global and regional trends in FDI, investment facilitation practices and techniques, policy advocacy and investor aftercare. The workshop programme will also include issues such as good governance and a series of group exercises on how to develop investment proposals, design investor surveys and prepare for strategic meetings and site visits.

For registration and further information please contact Mrs. Alexandra Tokareva at: alexandra.tokareva@waipa.org or at the following telephone number: +41 22 797 26 63.

IV Afripanet meeting, Durban, South Africa, on 24-25 October 2008

The 4th Meeting of the African Investment Promotion Network (AfrIPANet) is scheduled to be held on 24-25 October 2008. The venue is the International Convention Center of Durban, South Africa. The general theme of this fourth AfrIPANet Meeting will be: “Evidence-based Investment Promotion Strategies and Policies to Support Africa’s Industrialization and Growth Strategy”. The Meeting is planned to precede the CEO Forum, being organized by the Africa Investors Magazine (26-28 October 2008) and the Conference of African Ministers of Industries (CAMI) (27-28 October 2008).

The basic objective of the meeting is to inform African investment promotion stakeholders about the official launch of UNIDO’s Regional Programme for Investment Promotion in Africa. This programme comprises an expanded fourth investor survey, the establishment of an internet-based “Investment Monitoring Platform” on which survey results will be consolidated, capacity building for IPAs and Intermediary Organizations and the establishment of UNIDO’s Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (SPX) networks. In this connection, three roundtable panel discussions will be organized on various sub-themes, namely: “Using FDI as the key to unlock opportunities for growth within the domestic sectors – Developing local suppliers and sub-contractors”, “Policy Advocacy – Uniting the Investment Promotion Stakeholders around the vision” and “The Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as stakeholders in the Investment Promotion Process”.

The participants will discuss and build consensus on the governance and implementation structures and their respective roles in the implementation and roll out of the Programme.

For more information, please contact: afripanet@unido.org

Report on Past Events

IEDC Annual Conference 2008, Atlanta, USA

The IEDC Annual Conference took place mid-October, 2008. The event gathered economic developers from different parts of the world who met in Atlanta for three full days of discussions. Twenty-eight concurrent sessions covering topics ranging from regional partnerships, best practices in entrepreneurship, and sustainability with focus on issues like climate change and urban housing were conducted at the event. Keynote speakers included Dr. Richard Florida, international best-selling author of The Rise of the Creative Class, who introduced his latest book, Who’s Your City?; Dr. Arthur “Chris” Nelson whose groundbreaking article, “The Next 100 Million” became the template for the overarching theme for this year’s IEDC conference. With a focus on the booming world population, this conference brought together industry leaders who broke down current issues and new models essential for communities looking to capture the growth brought by the next billion. The President of Waipa, Mr. Alessandro Teixeira, was a guest speaker at the IEDC event, after introducing the Association to the conference attendants, Mr. Teixeira’s presentation highlighted recent data and patterns of global FDI flows. Please log on to IEDC website www.iedconline.org/AnnualConference for more detailed information.

3rd Columbia International Investment Conference, New York, USA

The "Third Columbia International Investment Conference" took place early October, 2008, in New York city. The main topic discussed at the conference was "FDI by State-Controlled Entities", with a special focus on Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF). Along with the IMF and the OECD, Columbia University and many other academic institutions participated in the event.

Antonio Hernández, Strategy Director of Invest in Spain and Waipa’s Director for the European Union, participated as a panelist. Mr. Hernández’ presentation focused on the legal framework of SWFs.

The main conclusions of the Conference were as follows:

• The importance of SWFs in the global FDI flows is still reduced, although their investments could substantially increase within the following years.
• SWFs have played an relevant role until now providing long-term capital to the companies and reducing macroeconomic imbalances.
• There are many other funds such as hedge funds, pension funds or private equity with less level of transparency that SWFs.
• Therefore, SWFs should be regarded much more as an opportunity than as a threat.
• The current rules concerning SWFs’ legal framework do not need to change.
• The Generally Accepted Principles and Practices (GAPP) elaborated by the Work Investment Group under the auspices of the IMF will be very useful as reference guidelines.
• Compliance is a key point.
• Any new actions to be implemented related to SWFs’ legal framework need to be coordinated among the different International Institutions.

One of the current main goals of WAIPA is to increase its international activities and notoriety. In this respect, Mr. Hernández had the opportunity at Columbia University to discuss the possibility that WAIPA participated with a speaker in the next OECD's World Investment Conference, in 2009, with the Chair of the OECD Investment Committee, Mr. Manfred Schekulin.

Those interested in getting the power point presentations showed at the Columbia’s Conference, please contact: Ms. Rocío Barriopedro from Invest in Spain at rbarriopedro@investinspain.org

Publications and Others

COMMUNICATION FROM THE SECRETARIAT

Join us in welcoming the Nevis Investment Promotion Agency and the Iraq National Investment Commission!

We are pleased to announce that the Nevis Investment Promotion Agency (NIPA) based in Saint Kitts and Nevis and the Iraq National Investment Commission, based in Baghdad, Iraq are new members of WAIPA. With their addition, the Association now covers 157 countries worldwide with 233 member agencies.