8:36 PM Oct 7, 1996

UNCTAD FORUM ON FDI, MULTILATERAL INVESTMENT FRAMEWORK

Geneva 7 Oct (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The UN Conference on Trade and Development as part of the two-week session of its Trade and Development Board, and in a high-level segment, is holding Thursday a socalled "Global Investment Forum" to discuss Foreign Direct Investment and Development in a globalizing world economy. Government representatives, executives from transnational corporations, representatives of UN agencies and other intergovernmental organizations, as well as experts from academic institutions and other non-governmental organizations are to discuss in three sessions policy issues related to FDI and development in a globalizing world economy.

The Trade and Industry Minister of South Africa, Mr. Alexander Irwin, who presided over UNCTAD-IX at Midrand in May will Preside over the forum and chair two of the sessions - one on general FDI issues and the other titled "Where do we go from here". A session related to a discussion of a multilateral framework on investment is to be chaired by the UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero.

An UNCTAD press release says that the discussions in the Global Investment forum will help governments to prepare for the first Ministerial Conference on the WTO to be held in Singapore (9-13 Dec), "where issues related to the linkages between trade and investment may figure prominently".

A secretariat announcement in the UNCTAD Board's daily journal says that the "success of the event will clearly depend on the active participation of as many delegations as possible, and it is therefore hoped that delegations will be in a position to attend the panel discussions and contribute fully to its success".

But with some 35 persons (Ministers from several countries) participating as panellists, and a few outside moderators and resource persons, even though the speakers have been asked to restrict themselves to five minutes of oral presentations, it is difficult to see any real debate taking place on the issues.

Three panel discussions are envisaged, and will be preceded by opening statements by Mr. Erwin and the UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero, and a session on business perspectives on FDI and development with views of the business community to be presented by the International Chamber of Commerce and a senior trade and investment advisor of IBM Canada. Other business executives participating include an executive of Nestles (the Swiss chocolate and milk product TNC) and the Bata shoe organization, and a South Korean consumer electronics TNC.

While a large number of ministers and senior officials of Third World countries are participating as panellists, there is no representative of the non-TNC business sectors of the South. The ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan is a panellist on the session about FDI, while the Director of the Third World Network Martin Khor is a panellist on the session on the MIA.

Generally, the European-Canadian efforts to have a multilateral investment agreement in the WTO is being presented to the developing world as one that would bring in FDI and technology to countries and develop them, and the idea is being pushed for start of a study process at SMC.

But as details are becoming known of what an MIA really is, and what the type of "liberalisation" advocated in the World Investment Report and pushed by the WTO would mean, opposition has begun to emerge among business sectors of the South.

Several executives of indigenous business firms, and national and regional chambers of commerce of the South, such as the Asean Chambers of Commerce, while welcoming carefully regulated foreign investment in their countries, have come out against any multilateral agreement on investment.

But their views will be unrepresented at the Global Forum - excepting to the extent that governments may choose to voice them.

The moderators of two of the three panels are British journalists, one from the Financial Times and the other from the BBC. The moderator for the session on a multilateral investment agreement, is Mr. Jaime Serra-Punch, a Mexican ultra-neo-liberalist who served as Secretary of Trade and Industry under President Salinas, and briefly as Treasury Secretary under President Ernesto Zedillo. Described in an Associated Press newsagency despatch from Mexico in June 1995 as one of President Zedillo's "most-trusted confidants", Serra resigned just days after the Mexican Peso was sharply devalued and is a visiting professor at Princeton in the US.

In Mexico and Latin America, Serra is identified with the Salinas regime's "liberalisation" policies and negotiated the NAFTA accord with the US and Canada.

The first panel, on "Trends, Policies and Inter-relationships", will consider trends in FDI, determinants and impediments and policy implications for promotion of FDI and the inter-relationships between investment, trade and technology and implications for development.

A second panel, "Towards a Multilateral Framework on Investment?" (with the question mark in the title appearing like a teaser in a newspaper headline) is devoted to an examination and review of existing agreements, identification and analysis of issues relevant to a possible multilateral framework on investment and implications for development.

A third panel, "Where do we go from here?" is to hear the views of regional and international organizations and intergovernmental bodies.

The high-level participants include Mr. Ibrahim Adam, Ghana's Minister of Trade and Industries; Mr. Vladimir Dlouhy, the Czech Republic's Minister of Industry and Trade; Mr. Antony Kandir, Brazil's Minister of Planning and Budget (on behalf of Mercosur); Mr. B.D.Ramaiah, India's Minister of State of Commerce; Mr. Yeo Cheow Tong, Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry; and Mr. Long Yong-Tu, China's Assistant Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Participants from international organizations include Mr. Donald Johnston, a Canadian, who is Secretary-General of the OECD Mrs. Maria Livanos Cattaui, Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce.