Global investment promotion best practices GIPB 2012: eyes on ACP

The Investment Climate Department of the World Bank Group helps governments implement reforms to improve their business environment, and encourage and retain investment, thus fostering competitive markets, growth and job creation. Global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) declined severely during the recent economic and financial crisis. As the crisis eased, recovery in world economies spurred a resurgence of FDI, and that in turn reignited competition for investments among host countries. To foster development of intellectual capital as well as businesses and jobs, governments increasingly recognize the importance of cultivating FDI. To position themselves to compete for FDI, most countries have set up investment promotion intermediaries (IPIs) to provide information on business conditions and opportunities to potential foreign investors. When IPIs develop relevant, accurate and timely information and make it easily available to potential investors, they reduce the risk perceptions and the transaction cost of investment projects. The Global Investment Promotion Best Practices (GIPB) project examines how IPIs perform when approached by foreign investors during their short-listing process. The GIPB 2012 report, building on data and analysis from past editions, offers the most complete examination yet of how well IPIs accomplish this crucial task of information provision. In this 2012 edition, GIPB focuses specifically on information provision in two sectors, tourism and agribusiness. This focus should be of particular use to economies that seek or are considering seeking to attract FDI in those sectors. More broadly, the feedback GIPB obtains can help IPIs improve their performance across all investment sectors in all economies. And the more IPIs succeed, the more investment-hungry economies, especially in the developing world, may be regarded as viable FDI partners.