BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/07/2007

UNCTAD`s Boss speaks on FDIs

United Nation Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi on Monday joined trade and investment officials from 15 countries to open a ten-day International Investment Agreement (IIAs) workshop in Minsk, Belarus.

The workshop is aimed at helping countries from Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and Central Asia to attract and benefit from Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) through a predictable and stable legal framework.

A release to the Ghana News Agency on Monday said Mr. Supachai would participate in the high-level segment of the training session titled "Foreign direct investment, trans-national corporations and development: implications for economies in transition."

Other prominent personalities participating in the workshop are Mr. Sergei Martynov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus; Cihan Sultanoglu, United Nations Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Belarus; and Uladimir Bobrov, Chairman of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

IIAs has proliferated and grown more complex in recent years. The year 2006 saw 2,600 bilateral IIAs being concluded.

The release noted that the expansion of IIAs to include a broader range of topics and issues, such as trade in goods and services, and the growing number of cases brought under IIA dispute-settlement mechanisms, had left developing countries struggling on occasion to keep up to date on the nature of such agreements and the international rules that govern them.

The Minsk workshop would be UNCTAD's 18th regional training session on IIAs, and the first to be staged for Eastern and Southern Europe and Central Asia.

IIAs are agreements between countries that set the terms for foreign investment, and serve the purpose of establishing clear rules that can encourage flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) that are vital for economic growth.

The Minsk training session will include interactive presentations by negotiators of IIAs, specialists from international organizations, academics, and IIA practitioners. General areas to be covered during the ten-day training course are key issues relevant to the analysis and negotiation of IIAs; the impact of recent dispute-settlement cases; investment dispute settlement mechanisms; and arbitration procedures.

Source:

http://www.accra-mail.com/mailnews.asp?id=1771