1

Occ

asio

nal P

aper

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Group of Thirty, Washington, DC

Sylvia Ostry

A New Regime forForeign Direct Investment

2

Sylvia Ostry is Distinguished Research Fellow, Centre for InternationalStudies, University of Toronto. The views expressed in this paper are those ofthe author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Group of Thirty.

Copies of this report are available for $10 from:

Group of Thirty1990 M Street, N.W., Suite 450

Washington, DC 20036

Tel.: (202) 331-2472 · Fax: (202) 785-9423

E-mail - info@group30.org · WWW - http://www.group30.org

3

Published byGroup of Thirty©

Washington, DC1997

Sylvia Ostry

A New Regime forForeign Direct Investment

Page

Contents

I. Introduction 1

II. Policy-Making in a Rearview Mirror 3

III. The Way Ahead 9

IV. The New Regime for ForeignDirect Investment 11

V. Conclusion 19

Group of Thirty Members 25

Group of Thirty Publications since 1989 27

6

1

I. Introduction

The title of this paper—A New Regime for Foreign DirectInvestment—might suggest that there exists a current set ofinternational investment rules that can be strengthened or

expanded. This is misleading because, despite the importance ofinternational investment to the world economy, there is nointernational regime for direct investment at all. Instead, investmentproceeds under a jumbled mix of regional arrangements, bilateraltreaties, and limited multilateral instruments, all differing on manyimportant issues. This stands in sharp contrast to the comprehensivesystem of norms and principles governing international trade.

The fact that there is no international regime for investmentseems particularly paradoxical because events have unfolded as if astrong international regime were in force. There has been a radicaland pervasive policy shift in favor of investment liberalization overthe past 10 or 15 years and investment has expanded rapidly. In fact,this trend toward liberalization may have made the absence of aninternational framework seem unimportant for a time.

However, it is probably more accurate to acknowledge that theabsence of an international investment regime stems from thepropensity of governments to “make policy in a rearview mirror,”to steal a phrase from Marshall McLuhan. As in other areas, policymakers have not anticipated a trend and devised a framework toguide the growth of investment. It is only when they realize that

2

investment has exploded spontaneously and rules have emergedchaotically that action to make sense of the process assumes sufficientimportance to act. The first part of this paper will briefly review thereasons for this serious policy lacuna and then turn to the currentdevelopments which may, if effectively managed, finally launchcomprehensive multilateral investment negotiations.

3

II. Policy-Making in a Rearview Mirror

The tale of the absent regime for foreign direct investment(FDI) has a long history which starts with the failure toestablish the International Trade Organization (ITO) at the

end of the 1940s. The ITO did include investment as well as tradebut the provisions were heavily circumscribed, reflecting the fearsof many developing countries that strong pro-investment ruleswould lead to foreign control over natural resources and “strategic”industries. In the negotiations leading up to the 1947 Havana Char-ter that would have created the ITO, developing countries demandedthe inclusion of provisions to reserve their right to expropriateforeign investments and to guarantee their freedom from the exer-tion of political influence by investor countries. These provisionswere unacceptable to American business and a major factor inbuilding opposition to the establishment of the trade institution.

The hostility of developing countries to foreign investment wasamplified in the 1970s, as reflected in the demand for a NewInternational Economic Order and a wave of nationalization andexpropriation. But by the early 1980s, the attitude of many hostcountries had begun to change, in large part because of the debtcrisis, but also because of the growing evidence of the failure ofimport-substitution policies and the amazing success of the Asian“dragons,” the rapidly industrializing countries of Southeast Asia.The early 1980s also marked the beginning of the U.S. effort tolaunch a new and ambitious round of multilateral negotiations,

4

which included, in addition to traditional GATT-type items, the so-called “new issues” of intellectual property, trade in services, andinvestment.

The Uruguay Round produced only limited results in investment.The negotiation to launch the Uruguay Round took almost as long asthe entire Tokyo Round of the 1970s. A U.S. call for new negotiationsdated back to 1981. After a number of near-failures, the UruguayRound was launched in Punta del Este in September 1986 andformally concluded in Marrakesh, Morocco, in April 1994, severalyears later than the original target date for completion.

The extraordinary difficulty in both initiating and completingthe Round stemmed from two fundamental factors: the nearlyinsuperable problem of finishing the unfinished business of pastnegotiations, most of all agriculture; and the equally contentiousquestion of introducing the new issues. The Europeans blocked thelaunch to avoid coming to grips with the Common AgriculturalPolicy (CAP), while a group of developing countries, led by Braziland India, bitterly opposed including nontraditional issues such asservices, intellectual property and investment because theynecessitated negotiation of domestic policies such as regulatory andindustrial policies and institutional infrastructures such as legalsystems. The new issues were thus a radical departure from thetraditional GATT world of “shallow” integration and were considereda direct challenge to national sovereignty.

The Americans demanded the inclusion of the new issues tocorrect the basic structural asymmetry of the original GATT. In thepostwar era, the term “trade in services” seemed an oxymoron.Intellectual property was covered by the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization (WIPO). Negotiations on investment had died withthe ITO. But in the 1980s, trade in services grew much more rapidlythan did merchandise trade, with the United States leading inexports by a considerable margin. The same lead status was evidentin investment and technology, with U.S. multinationals controlling43% of the world stock of foreign investment at the outset of the1980s and the American technology balance of payments surplusreaching well over $6 billion while every other OECD country faceda deficit. It seems highly improbable that the American businesscommunity or politicians would have continued to support themultilateral system for much longer without a fundamental rebalancingof the GATT.

5

But almost precisely at the time the Round was launched inPunta del Este, the international economy was beginning a processof dramatic transformation. The word “globalization”—part ofeveryday parlance today—was first used as a term of art in 1986.The term was spawned by the investment surge of the second halfof the decade that involved all the leading countries of the OECDand not, as in the earlier period, just the United States. Growth ofinvestment from 1985 to 1990 averaged nearly 30 percent per year,a figure four times the rate of world output and three times the rateof trade. Most of it was undertaken by multinational enterprises(MNEs) in capital- and technology-intensive sectors. Technologyflows (as captured from the very inadequate measure of royaltiesand fees) also exploded, increasing from an annual negative growthrate of 0.1 percent in the first half of the decade to a positive 22percent growth rate in the second half. After a slowdown in theearly 1990s because of recession in the OECD countries, investmentflows started to pick up again, but with a difference.

Investment was no longer overwhelmingly dominated by asmall group of OECD countries—the United States, Japan, the UnitedKingdom, Italy, Germany, and France. Instead, non-OECD countries,especially in East Asia, are increasingly important host and homecountries (see Tables 1 and 2). Further, a new type of “investment”,in the form of strategic technology alliances, has also explodedduring the 1980s and 1990s. These alliances are formed by separate,and sometimes competing, firms from different countries to shareeach other’s technology. Although data are scarce, there is enoughevidence to show that these alliances involve both OECD and non-OECD firms, again especially in East Asia.

Thus by the time the Uruguay Round ended, the MNEs werethe main channels for trade, finance and technology flows—theengines of growth. Once sales of foreign affiliates, licensing androyalties payments for technology, and franchising fees are takeninto account, a recent estimate for the United States suggests that 80percent of earnings for goods and services sold abroad are linked tothe activities of American multinationals.1 Since U.S. firms have thestrongest global presence, the comparable figure for other countrieswould be smaller, but moving in the same direction.

The impl icat ions of g lobal izat ion for es tabl ishing acomprehensive, multilateral, rules-based regime for the internationaleconomy are now becoming clearer, even in the rearview mirror.For the MNEs, increasingly the dominant actors in high-tech sectors

6

and services, market entry by means of both trade and investmentis essential: the two modes are complements, not alternatives. Andmarket presence is a two-way channel for both technology diffusionand technology access. Further, globalization is an ongoing processbecause the growing global presence and power of the MNEs reflectsrevolutionary change in the cost and capability of information andcommunication technology. This revolution is both an enabler anda driver of globalization, fostering innovation in products, inproduction processes, and in organization at the enterprise andindustry levels.

The greatly intensified international rivalry produced byglobalization, especially in technology-intensive industries, spurstransnational corporations to capture economies of scale and scope,customize products to satisfy consumer tastes, and gain access tointer- and intra-firm networks and knowledge. These networks,which distribute different parts of the production process on aregional basis, are most evident today in the Japanese electronicsindustry in East Asia, but they are rapidly spreading to othermanufacturing and service sectors. Locational competition for highvalue-added investment is intensifying and a wide range of distortingincentives is proliferating.

In sum, all these developments make evident the need for anew international regime. It is essential to note that building a newregime does not mean starting de novo. The Uruguay Round didlaunch an agenda of deeper policy integration. It made remarkableprogress in two of the three new areas on the agenda, services andintellectual property, although even in these areas much remains tobe done. With respect to investment, the trade-related investmentmeasures (TRIMs) negotiations accomplished less, covering onlytwo issues: local content (measures that require the use of domesticproducts) and trade-balancing requirements (measures that restrictimports to a proportion of exports). Indeed, investment almostdropped off the agenda in the closing hours of the launch at Puntadel Este and received little attention in the negotiations—far lessthan the other two new issues.

There were two reasons for this neglect. Investment was not atop priority for the Americans, who attached less importance to itthan to services or intellectual property. There was an implicittrade-off involved, no doubt related to the relative clout of thevarious business lobbies. But more importantly, perhaps, the EuropeanCommunity was hampered because many member countries had no

7

desire to constrain the use of investment performance requirementsas instruments of high-tech industrial policy to increase thecompetitiveness of European industries in sectors—such as informationtechnology—where both the United States and Japan were rapidlypulling ahead. So while the European Community did rally supportfor services and intellectual property, the business lobbies weresplit along national lines on the investment issue. The results reflectthis rather blurred strategic focus of the two main players in thenegotiations.

It is also important to note, however, that progress on investmentissues was also achieved in other negotiations. The servicesnegotiations which resulted in the General Agreement on Trade inServices (GATS) provide in principle that all modes of market entryare ensured, including the establishment of the service supplier ina country. Furthermore, a broad definition of investment wouldalso include intellectual property and thus in that sense the protectionprovided in the Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement(TRIPs) might also be considered an investment-related componentof the WTO. The TRIPs Agreement sets minimum requirements oncopyrights, trademarks, patents, and other issues, and includesrequirements for both national treatment and most-favored-nationtreatment.

9

III. The Way Ahead

Shifting from the rearview mirror to focus on the road ahead,there is now widespread agreement that globalization hastransformed the landscape and that the absence of

comprehensive and coherent rules on investment leaves a gapinghole in the multilateral system housed in the WTO. There is, however,less agreement about when and how to repair the structure.

The first effort in that respect—the 1995 launch of negotiationson a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in the OECD—was led (or pushed) by the United States, with only reluctantsupport from the European Union. Although most European countrieshave adopted less interventionist investment policies in recent yearsand globalization has created much stronger business support for anew international regime, the European Commission’s negotiatingstatus in the OECD is far weaker than in the WTO. Another, and farmore cogent, reason for favoring the WTO is the growing importanceof non-OECD countries, especially in East Asia, as both home andhost countries. Although an OECD Agreement would be open toaccession by non-member countries, it seems clear now that few, ifany, especially from Asia, are likely to join any agreement whichexcludes their participation in the negotiations. Indeed, the rancorthe OECD initiative has provoked among many WTO membercountries may have hindered rather than hastened an initiative inthe WTO, the only appropriate forum for a global agreement. Further,

10

as already noted, since investment-related provisions already existin the WTO (TRIMs, Services, TRIPs and other agreements such asSubsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Dispute SettlementBody), only a WTO negotiation could ensure overall coherence in anew regime. Adding the OECD MAI to existing regional and bilateralarrangements would only extend the present jumble.

Paradoxically, however, the backlash provoked by the OECDnegotiations as well as failure in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperationefforts to produce more than a vaguely worded declaration of non-binding principles2 has provided the impetus for a move to theWTO by the United States and this time with support from theEuropean Union. At the first Ministerial Meeting of the WTO theformation of a working group on investment and competition wasagreed,3 although not without significant opposition for a numberof countries, especially in Asia. This first step, however tentativeand fragile, can be bolstered by the use of the provision in the FinalAct of the Uruguay Round that requires the review of the TRIMsAgreement operations by the end of 1999 and that stipulates thatthis review should include an assessment of the need for provisionsrelating to investment policy and competition policy. If the workingparty on investment can proceed expeditiously and present aninterim report of discussions for the 1998 Ministerial, it would bepossible to launch negotiations before the end of the decade.

The main issues for consideration in these negotiations arewidely agreed. As always, the devil is in the detail. A division oflabor should be worked out. The WTO itself should focus on themain areas of contention and it should pursue research and policy-analysis in cooperation with UNCTAD.

11

IV. The New Regime forForeign Direct Investment

The overall objective of a new regime is to provide transparentand stable rules designed to promote and sustain theliberalization of foreign direct investment flows.4 Thus there

are three substantive components of a new regime: definition andprotection of investment flows, liberalization measures, and settlementof disputes. For the purposes of our present discussion, the mostpertinent issues relate to liberalization and dispute settlement. Itshould be noted, however, that NAFTA, and probably also theOECD negotiations, adopt a broad definition of investment whichgoes well beyond the enterprise-based concept to include portfolioinvestments and a wide range of asset-based instruments. Such adefinition centers on the individual rather than the corporation asthe investor and raises a number of issues likely to be controversialin the WTO context. But, as noted, in the context of the currentdiscussion, the more traditional concept of FDI is adopted.

To govern the extent and nature of liberalization the newregime must include four principles or norms:

• right of establishment,

• national treatment,

• transparency,

• non-discrimination or most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment.

12

There will be difficulties in achieving consensus in the WTO ineach of these areas. This is, of course, hardly surprising: this is the50th anniversary of the GATT and we are still some distance fromcomplete elimination of border barriers. The OECD negotiationswill encounter far less difficulty in all these norms. The initialannouncement of the MAI touted the objective of achieving a “highstandard” accord (which greatly irritated many non-OECD countries,provoking the question, are we “low standard?”). While this highstandard objective may be achieved, it remains to be seen whetherand to what extent it will provide the model for a global regime. Inthis regard, the main areas of dispute in the discussion that followswill concentrate on the OECD - non-OECD—essentially the trans-Pacific—divide.

Right of EstablishmentAn unencumbered right of establishment would require negotiationsto eliminate or reduce government screening and “performancerequirements” imposed by all levels of host governments. Reducingscreening will be difficult because a form of high-tech industrialpolicy intended to nurture so-called “strategic industries” is nowbeing pursued by many non-OECD countries. This is reflected in thegrowing use of performance requirements designed to enhancetechnology diffusion, often involving requirements for advancedtechnology and training. This is also a major factor driving theproliferation of investment incentives. It is thus a very broad andcross-cutting issue and should be approached as such.

Fulfillment of the perfectly understandable desire of the dynamicindustrializing countries to move up the value-added ladder to jointhe post-war “rich country club” of the OECD will rest mainly onchanges in domestic policy to promote deregulation, improvegovernance, increase the level of education and training, etc. Butforeign technology is now and will remain a key input to sustaininggrowth and FDI will be a major channel for this technology.

It will be difficult, but not impossible, to develop an approachthat strikes a balance between the desire of OECD countries for freeright of establishment and that of the industrializing countries toimpose technology-transfer requirements in order to upgrade theirtechnological capabilities. That balance will involve the OECDcountries recognizing the validity of certain types of requirementsand the industrializing countries agreeing to restrict their use.Indeed, if the issue of performance requirements is not consideredin a sufficiently broad context, their elimination would simply shift

13

the problem to the second norm, national treatment, by increasingthe proliferation of incentives.

National TreatmentAn obligation to provide national treatment requires that a hostcountry treat the foreign investor in a manner no less favorable thana domestic firm. A key issue in a WTO regime will be treatment ofa foreign investor in a manner far more favorable than a domesticfirm. In this regard, the proliferation of investment incentives inrecent years reflects a major feature of globalization—locationalcompetition for FDI. Since globalization is an ongoing process andlocational competition is bound to increase, one would have expectedthat the issue of investment incentives, which create major distortionsin investment flows and help feed protectionist pressures in agrowing number of host countries because of fear of delocalization,would have been high on the MAI agenda. Not so—the restriction orabolition of incentives is unlikely to be included in the final agreement.

Whatever the reason for this surprising gap—and it probably islinked, inter alia, to American reluctance or inability to include theStates, where most of the incentives are generated—no internationalregime of any significance can afford to ignore this key issue. Aswas the case in the agricultural negotiations, the tit-for-tat subsidybattle between Europe and the United States helped launch theUruguay Round negotiations. Thus with the incentives issue,cooperative action is the only route to solution.

While technology transfer is not the only force driving incentives,it is very significant in the WTO context of the trans-Pacific divide.One way to tackle it, both in the incentives and performancerequirements context, would be to expand and clarify the UruguayRound subsidies and countervailing measures (SCM) agreement.

This agreement included, for the first time, specified exemptionsfrom countervailing duties for basic and applied industrial research.It permits subsidies for some proportion of R&D expenditure,presumably on the rationale that the private investor cannot fullyappropriate the benefits which emanate from the enrichment of acountry’s knowledge base and thus this spillover merits governmentintervention to increase investment in research in specific technology-intensive industries. While there are some difficulties withimplementation, especially in specifying definitions of non-actionableresearch assistance and collecting appropriate information, theprecedent has now been established. Many economists regard this

14

market failure argument as the last refuge for government intervention,noting the long history of governmental efforts to pick winners inmany OECD countries. Maybe they are right, though the debate isongoing, especially in the new growth literature. But in the world ofpractical policy-making one has to consider the alternatives. In thisinstance, the alternatives of proliferation of incentives and thelikelihood of growing bilateral confrontation may be far worse.

The definition of subsidies in the SCM agreement is broadenough to cover most incentives, although there may have to besome modest alterations. Another and significant advantage to begained from using the SCM is that it would ensure linkage betweentrade and investment in WTO dispute settlements and thus providefor cross-retaliation if necessary. A pronounced asymmetry in theglobalization process still exists, since trade flow linkages are morebalanced than investment linkages. It is important, therefore, toensure the cohesion of the system within the WTO. The unified,single dispute settlement mechanism is one of the primary means ofdoing so.

Another technology issue to be tackled in the new regime isresearch and development consortia. At present, this is more anissue in the OECD countries but it will increasingly emerge in manyother countries. By the end of the l980s, jointly funded public-private research consortia had become a prominent feature ofinnovation policy in Europe, the United States, and most of all inJapan, where they were first launched a decade earlier. The increasinglycontentious issue, not yet settled, concerns participation by foreignsubsidiaries in these activities under the principle of “nationaltreatment.” A range of U.S. laws includes provisions for what isnow termed “conditional national treatment.” In some cases, theconditions amount to performance requirements under another name,as well as require reciprocal assets for U.S. firms in the homecountry of the subsidiary. The European Union also uses performancerequirements, but they tend to be less transparent than in the UnitedStates, and involve considerable administrative discretion. Becauseof the acrimonious high-tech battles between the United States andJapan over the 1980s, the rules for foreign participation in Japaneseconsortia for the most part apply national treatment.

The reasons for including research consortia in a new regimeare twofold: they are now likely to involve more non-OECD homeand host countries; and they can rightly be included in a broaddefinition of performance requirements and/or incentives, whichwould improve the chances of achieving a more balanced package

15

in the contentious technology issues. But if national treatment iseventually to be achieved with respect to subsidies, incentives orconsortia, the problem of basic information in these areas must besolved. This relates to our next principle.

TransparencyThis GATT-term was conceived in the world of shallow integrationwhich focused on border barriers, mainly tariffs, and their closestproxies such as quotas, voluntary restraints, and domestic subsidies.The new issues of the Uruguay Round moved the focus inside theborder, where many of the impediments to effective access stemfrom domestic legal and regulatory regimes and where the conceptof transparency is far more complex and elusive. Investment regimeshave elements of both GATT-type barriers, in the form of specificrestrictions or exclusions, and of deeper integration impedimentsas, for example, in countries with no strong tradition of administrativelaw so that publication of full and reliable information on regulationsand administrative procedures is not available. Even in OECDcountries, as noted above in reference to research consortia, there isno comprehensive information set on the rules for foreign participationor on the actual numbers of foreign participants.

Since it is not possible to negotiate a reduction of impedimentsif the impediments are essentially unknown, transparency is basicto a new regime. But the task of improving transparency is clearlyboth immense and complex. A good way to start would be to buildon existing work by UNCTAD. A recent UNCTAD report5 documentsa significant increase in both the number and range of foreigninvestment incentives since the mid-1980s in both developing andOECD countries. An extension of the UNCTAD initiative, includingsome effort at quantification, should be accorded a high priority.Ideally, UNCTAD, in cooperation with the WTO, should launch ajoint project with the OECD, which has long experience in thestatistical field and has developed innovative methodology in thesubsidies area. Another useful partner in a joint project could beAPEC, which also produced in 1995 a regional survey of trade andinvestment impediments.6

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Most-Favored-Nation TreatmentNon-discrimination or MFN is the most basic principle of the originalmultilateral system. It requires that, if a host country accords morefavorable treatment to one country, that same treatment must beaccorded to all other parties. At the same time, Article 24 of theGATT does permit certain preferential or discriminatory arrangements.This was a product of the Cold War to promote European integrationas a bulwark against the Soviet threat. It was opposed by manyeconomists but their opposition was overruled by the U.S. StateDepartment. Since those days, of course, preferential arrangementshave multiplied enormously and since the mid-1980s, Americanpolicy has become multi-track, including, in addition tomultilateralism, regionalism and unilateralism.

Thus one key issue in a new regime will be whether countriesthat are members of free trade agreements or common markets willbe allowed to grant preferential treatment to investments fromother members of the regional arrangement. It is not clear whatposition either the European Union or the United States will pursue.But most East Asian countries will oppose any preferentialarrangements.

Another issue will relate to the coverage of a WTO agreement.If, as seems likely, the initial negotiations are plurilateral, involvingthe OECD countries and the most advanced of the non-OECDeconomies, the United States will not yield on reciprocity, i.e., willnot accept an agreement which does not provide roughly equivalenteffective access arrangements. Thus some sort of conditional MFN,in which only the plurilateral group receives the benefits and acceptsthe obligations (a precedent established in the Tokyo Round) maybe the only way to start the process.

Dispute SettlementHousing the new international investment regime in the WTO wouldensure access to its single Dispute Settlement Body and ensurelinkage with the international trade regime. The WTO disputeprocedure is based on the historical origins of the GATT involvinggovernment-to-government modes of conflict resolution. In theinvestment field, NAFTA broke new ground by allowing for directaction by investors. Thus an investor can take a host government tobinding international arbitration in seeking remedies against

17

government conduct allegedly violating the agreed rules. A numberof international arbitration fora are increasingly used in this capacity.

This issue of “direct action” is likely to be demanded by manyhost countries, most prominently by the United States, as central toa new WTO agreement since it was included in NAFTA and isprominent in the MAI. It would radically change the WTO mechanismsince direct action, rooted in the concept of investor rights, aims atmonetary compensation or the restitution of property, whereasgovernment-to-government dispute settlement provides for theimposition of “commercially-equivalent” trade sanctions. The coreelement of direct action is thus individual property rights, i.e., thecore element of Western legal systems. The scope for conflict withsome Asian countries, especially China, is rather obvious. But thetrend to legalization of the trade regime, which began with theTokyo Round’s detailed legalistic codes on trade remedies, representsanother aspect of globalization and the dominant role of the MNEs.Further, the precedent for direct action was established in a little-noted aspect of the Uruguay Round in both the GovernmentProcurement and the TRIPs Agreements.7 Both require membergovernments to establish procedures for suppliers to challengealleged violations, and the TRIPs Agreement includes provisions forright-holders to directly petition customs authorities to block theimportation of counterfeits. It is still too early to judge the results ofthese provisions since they have not yet been tested. But since theprecedent exists, it will be difficult to resist its application in theforeign investment regime from which, it may be argued, its logicemanates.

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V. Conclusion

Many of the historical barriers to including investment in aglobal regime have disappeared or at least greatly weakened.Thus, in a very important sense, the time is now ripe to

negotiate an international investment agreement. But the road aheadwill not be smooth and only concerted cooperative leadership cannavigate around the blocks and potholes.

The OECD negotiations, intended to produce a model (“highstandard”) agreement for adoption by Ministers at their 1997 annualmeeting, failed to meet that deadline. But when such an agreementis concluded, even though some non-OECD countries may voluntarilyadopt the provisions, these are unlikely to include a number of keycountries, especially in Asia. Hence, the OECD agreement will behigh standard with limited coverage; the WTO must be the forumfor negotiation of a global accord.

The decision by the WTO Ministers to establish a workinggroup on investment was by no means easy and much of theopposition came from key foreign investment host countries, mostlyin Asia. But the signal sent by that decision was clear enough. Therewill be negotiations in the WTO on global rules. The negotiationswill be difficult and lengthy. The result may not be “high standard”in the eyes of some OECD countries. But it will be global, eventuallyincluding China, Russia and other countries in the WTO accessionqueue. There is probably a trade-off between quality and scope, but

20

trade-offs are an essential element in all truly significant negotiations.And multilateral, transparent and enforceable rules for investmentsurely qualify for that designation.

21

Tab

le 1

. Fo

reig

n-D

irec

t-In

vest

men

t, 1

985-

1990

(In

mill

ion

s o

f U

S d

olla

rs)

Ou

tflo

ws

Infl

ow

s

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

Glo

bala

58,2

9293

,767

139,

629

171,

567

216,

767

237,

471

50,9

7576

,052

122,

175

150,

449

190,

486

200,

434

(100

)(1

00)

(100

)(1

00)

(100

)(1

00)

(100

)(1

00)

(100

)(1

00)

(100

)(1

00)

U.S

.13

,170

18,6

9031

,040

17,8

8029

,000

32,6

9019

,030

34,0

8058

,140

59,4

2067

,870

45,1

40

Japa

n6,

450

14,4

8019

,520

34,2

1044

,160

48,0

5064

023

01,

170

-520

-1,0

601,

760

U.K

.10

,643

17,5

7731

,446

37,3

1435

,517

17,8

404,

732

7,30

914

,106

18,2

6328

,165

32,5

76

Italy

1,87

42,

694

2,36

25,

576

2,14

17,

637

1,06

7-1

534,

188

6,78

92,

191

6,44

1

Ger

man

y5,

933

10,5

069,

197

12,7

0218

,289

28,3

772,

722

722

1,49

087

510

,626

8,38

8

Fra

nce

2,24

35,

403

9,21

014

,496

19,4

2635

,015

2,59

53,

256

5,14

08,

487

10,3

1313

,223

Indu

stria

lized

Nat

ions

b40

313

66,9

5010

2,77

511

7,15

914

8,53

316

9,60

930

,786

45,4

4484

,234

93,3

1411

8,10

510

7,52

8(6

9.1)

(71.

4)(7

3.6)

(68.

2)(6

8.5)

(71.

4)(6

0.3)

(59.

7)(6

8.9)

(62.

0)(6

2.0)

(53.

6)

Eas

tA

siac

901

742

1,20

41,

142

1,58

82,

284

4,84

76,

479

11,2

3114

,663

14,2

8916

,746

(1.5

)(0

.79)

(0.8

6)(0

.66)

(0.7

3)(0

.96)

(9.5

)(8

.5)

(9.1

)(9

.7)

(7.5

)(8

.3)

Sou

rce:

Inte

rnat

iona

l Mon

etar

y F

und,

Bal

ance

-of-

Pay

men

ts S

tatis

tics

1994

; Uni

ted

Nat

ions

, Wor

ld In

vest

men

t Rep

ort

1992

.

a. T

otal

ref

ers

to w

orld

tota

l.

b. In

dust

rializ

ed n

atio

ns in

clud

e th

e U

S, J

apan

, the

UK

, Ita

ly, G

erm

any,

and

Fra

nce.

c. E

ast A

sian

out

flow

dat

a in

clud

es K

orea

, Sin

gapo

re, T

aiw

an, T

haila

nd, a

nd C

hina

. Inf

low

dat

a in

clud

es K

orea

,S

inga

pore

, Tai

wan

, Tha

iland

, Mal

aysi

a, P

hilip

pine

s, In

done

sia,

Hon

g K

ong,

and

Chi

na.

Not

e: F

igur

es in

par

enth

eses

rep

rese

nt p

erce

ntag

es.

22

Tab

le 2. Fo

reign

-Direct-In

vestmen

t, 1991-95(In

millio

ns o

f US

do

llars)

Ou

tflow

sIn

flow

s

19911992

19931994

19951991

19921993

19941995

Global a

210,821203,115

225,544230,014

317,84915,773

168,122207,937

225,660314,933

(100)(100)

(100)(100)

(100)(100)

(100)(100)

(100)(100)

U.S

.33,456

38,97868,978

45,64095,509

22,02017,580

41,12849,760

60,236

Japan42,619

21,91615,471

18,52121,286

1,7303,490

234908

39

U.K

.16,304

18,98225,671

25,33437,839

16,20814,934

14,47510,085

29,910

Italy7,222

5,8917,409

5,1063,210

2,4013,105

3,7492,199

4,347

Germ

any23,723

19,69813,176

14,65335,302

4,0712,370

277-2,993

8,996

France

23,93231,269

20,40322,802

17,55415,153

21,84020,752

17,13620,124

IndustrializedN

ationsb

147,256136,734

151,108132,056

210,70061,583

63,23280,615

77,095123,652

(69.8)(57.6)

(66.9)(57.4)

(66.2)(39.0)

(37.6)(38.7)

(34.1)(39.2)

East A

siac

8,64617,314

29,21732,951

41,58820,727

26,46845,461

52,11361,972

(4.1)(8.5)

(12.9)(14.3)

(13.08)(13.1)

(15.7)(21.8)

(23.1)(19.6)

Source: U

nited Nations, W

orld Investment R

eport 1996.

a. Total refers to w

orld total.

b. Industrialized nations include the US

, Japan, the UK

, Italy, Germ

any, and France.

c. East A

sian data includes Korea, S

ingapore, Taiw

an, Thailand, M

alaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and H

ong Kong.

Note: F

igures in parentheses represent percentages.

23

End Notes

1 See UNCTAD, World Investment Report, 1995, p. 38.

2 The APEC Ministers endorsed the APEC Non-Binding InvestmentPrinciples in Jakarta in November 1994. In the Principles, the Ministersrecognize the importance of full implementation of the Uruguay RoundTRIMs Agreement and call for members to adhere to principles ontransparency, national treatment, investment incentives, performancerequirements, expropriation, repatriation, and other issues.

3 “Having regard to the existing WTO provisions on matters related toinvestment and competition policy and the built-in agenda in theseareas, including under the TRIMs Agreement, and on the understandingthat the work undertaken shall not prejudge whether negotiations willbe initiated in the future, we also agree to:

• establish a working group to examine the relationship betweentrade and investment; and

• establish a working group to study issues raised by Members relatingto the interaction between trade and competition policy, includinganti-competitive practices, in order to identify any areas that maymerit further consideration in the WTO framework.

These groups shall draw upon each other’s work if necessary and alsodraw upon and be without prejudice to the work in UNCTAD and otherappropriate intergovernmental fora. The General Council will keep thework of each body under review, and will determine after two yearshow the work of each body should proceed. It is clearly understood thatfuture negotiations, if any, regarding multilateral disciplines in theseareas, will take place only after an explicit consensus decision is takenamong WTO Members regarding such negotiations.”, WTO Focus, January1997, p. 10.

4 For a comprehensive review of the main norms and principles comprisingan international investment regime as well as a compendium of allexisting instruments see UNCTAD, International Investment Instruments:A Compendium, Volumes I and II, Geneva, 1996. See also Edward M.Graham, Global Corporations and National Governments, Institute forInternational Economics, Washington, D.C., 1996.

5 Incentives and Foreign Direct Investment, Geneva, April, 1995.

6 Survey of Impediments to Trade and Investment in the APEC Region, AReport by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council for APEC, Singapore,1995.

7 For an analysis of the implications, see Bernard M. Hoeckman andPetros C. Mavroides, “Policy Externalities and High-Tech Rivalry:Competition and Multilateral Co-operation Beyond the WTO,” in OECD,Market Access After the Uruguay Round: Investment, Competition andTechnology Perspectives, Paris, 1996

24

25

Group of Thirty Members

Rt. Hon. Lord RichardsonHonorary Chairman, Group of ThirtyFormer Governor, Bank of England

Mr. Paul A. VolckerChairman, Group of Thirty

Dr. Pedro AspeChairman of the Board, Vector Casa De Bolsa, S.A. de C.V.

Mr. Geoffrey L. BellSecretary, Group of ThirtyPresident, Geoffrey Bell & Company

Sir Roderick H. CarnegieChairman, Newcrest Mining Limited & Hudson Conway Limited

Sr. Domingo CavalloPresident, Fundación Mediterránea

Mr. E. Gerald CorriganChairman, International Advisors, Goldman Sachs & Co.

Mr. Andrew D. CrockettGeneral Manager, Bank for International Settlements

Mr. Richard A. DebsAdvisory Director, Morgan Stanley

Sr. Guillermo de la DehesaConsejero Delegado, Banco Pastor

Professor Gerhard FelsDirector, Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft

Dr. Jacob A. FrenkelGovernor, Bank of Israel

Dr. Victor K. Fung CBEChairman, Hong Kong Trade Development Council

26

Dr. Wilfried GuthEmeritus Member - Group of ThirtyDeutsche Bank AG

Mr. Toyoo GyohtenSenior Advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd.President, Institute for International Monetary Affairs

Mr. Gerd HauslerMember of the Managing Board, Dresdner Bank

Mr. John G. HeimannTreasurer, Group of ThirtyChairman, Global Financial Institutions, Merrill Lynch

Mr. Erik HoffmeyerFormer Governor, Danmarks Nationalbank

Professor Peter B. KenenDirector, International Finance Section, Department of Economics, PrincetonUniversity

Professor Paul KrugmanProfessor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mr. Yoh KurosawaChairman of the Board of Directors, Industrial Bank of Japan

M. Jacques de LarosièrePresident, European Bank for Reconstruction & Development

Mr. Shijuro OgataSenior Advisor, Yamaichi Securities Co.

Dr. Sylvia OstryDistinguished Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, University ofToronto

Dr. Tommaso Padoa-SchioppaChairman, Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa

Mr. Rupert Pennant-ReaChairman, Caspian Securities Ltd.

Mr. William R. RhodesVice Chairman, Citibank

Sir William S. Ryrie KCBVice Chairman, ING Baring Holdings Ltd.

Mr. Ernest SternManaging Director, J.P. Morgan & Company

M. Jean-Claude TrichetGouverneur, Banque de France

Sir David WalkerChairman, Morgan Stanley International Inc.

Dr. Marina v N. WhitmanProfessor of Business Administration and Public Policy, University of Michigan

27

Group of Thirty Publications since 1989

Reports:

Global Institutions, National Supervision and Systemic RiskStudy Group on Supervision and Regulation. 1997

Latin American Capital Flows: Living with VolatilityLatin American Capital Flows Study Group. 1994

Defining the Roles of Accountants, Bankers andRegulators in the United StatesStudy Group on Accountants, Bankers and Regulators. 1994

EMU After MaastrichtPeter B. Kenen. 1992

Sea Changes in Latin AmericaPedro Aspe, Andres Bianchi and Domingo Cavallo, with discussion byS.T. Beza and William Rhodes. 1992

The Summit Process and Collective Security:Future Responsibility SharingThe Summit Reform Study Group. 1991

Financing Eastern EuropeRichard A. Debs, Harvey Shapiro and Charles Taylor. 1991

The Risks Facing the World EconomyThe Risks Facing the World Economy Study Group. 1991

28

Perestroika: A Sustainable Process for ChangeJohn P. Hardt and Sheila N. Heslin, with commentary byOleg Bogomolov. 1989

The William Taylor Memorial Lectures

Global Risk ManagementUlrich Cartellieri and Alan Greenspan. 1996

The Financial Disruptions of the 1980s:A Central Banker Looks BackE. Gerald Corrigan. 1993

Special Reports:

Derivatives: Practices and Principles: Follow-upSurveys of Industry PracticeGlobal Derivatives Study Group. 1994

Derivatives: Practices and Principles, Appendix III:Survey of Industry PracticeGlobal Derivatives Study Group. 1994

Derivatives: Practices and Principles, Appendix II:Legal Enforceability: Survey of Nine JurisdictionsGlobal Derivatives Study Group. 1993

Derivatives: Practices and Principles, Appendix I:Working PapersGlobal Derivatives Study Group. 1993

Derivatives: Practices and PrinciplesGlobal Derivatives Study Group. 1993

Clearance and Settlement Systems: Status Reports,Autumn 1992Various Authors. 1992

Clearance and Settlement Systems: Status Reports,Year-End 1990Various Authors. 1991

Conference on Clearance and Settlement Systems;London, March 1990: SpeechesVarious Authors. 1990

29

Clearance and Settlement Systems: Status Reports,Spring 1990Various Authors. 1990

Clearance and Settlement Systems in the World’sSecurities MarketsSteering & Working Committees of the Securities Clearance andSettlement Study. 1988

Occasional Papers:

52. Derivatives and Monetary PolicyGerd Hausler. 1996

51. The Reform of Wholesale PaymentSystems and its Impact on Financial MarketsDavid Folkerts-Landau, Peter Garber, and Dirk Schoenmaker

50. EMU ProspectsGuillermo de la Dehesa and Peter B. Kenen. 1995

49. New Dimensions of Market AccessSylvia Ostry. 1995

48. Thirty Years in Central BankingErik Hoffmeyer. 1994

47. Capital, Asset Risk and Bank FailureLinda M. Hooks. 1994

46. In Search of a Level Playing Field: The Implementationof the Basle Capital Accord in Japan and the United StatesHal S. Scott and Shinsaku Iwahara. 1994

45. The Impact of Trade on OECD Labor MarketsRobert Z. Lawrence. 1994

44. Global Derivatives: Public Sector ResponsesJames A. Leach, William J. McDonough, David W. Mullins,

Brian Quinn. 1993

43. The Ten Commandments of Systemic ReformVáclav Klaus. 1993

42. Tripolarism: Regional and Global Economic CooperationTommaso Padoa–Schioppa. 1993

41. The Threat of Managed Trade to Transforming EconomiesSylvia Ostry. 1993

30

40. The New Trade AgendaGeza Feketekuty. 1992

39. EMU and the RegionsGuillermo de la Dehesa and Paul Krugman. 1992

38. Why Now? Change and Turmoil in U.S. BankingLawrence J. White. 1992

37. Are Foreign-owned Subsidiaries Good for theUnited States?Raymond Vernon. 1992

36. The Economic Transformation of East Germany:Some Preliminary LessonsGerhard Fels and Claus Schnabel. 1991

35. International Trade in Banking Services:A Conceptual FrameworkSydney J. Key and Hal S. Scott. 1991

34. Privatization in Eastern and Central EuropeGuillermo de la Dehesa. 1991

33. Foreign Direct Investment: The Neglected Twin of TradeDeAnne Julius. 1991

32. Interdependence of Capital Markets and Policy ImplicationsStephen H. Axilrod. 1990

31. Two Views of German ReunificationHans Tietmeyer and Wilfried Guth. 1990

30. Europe in the Nineties: Problems and AspirationsWilfried Guth. 1990

29. Implications of Increasing Corporate Indebtedness forMonetary PolicyBenjamin M. Friedman. 1990

28. Financial and Monetary Integration in Europe: 1990,1992 and BeyondTommaso Padoa-Schioppa. 1990

27. Reciprocity and the Unification of the EuropeanBanking MarketDouglas Croham. 1989

26. Japan’s Savings and External Surplus in the World EconomyMasaru Yoshitomi. 1989

25. 1992: The External DimensionDavid Henderson. 1989

Group of Thirty1990 M Street, N.W., Suite 450Washington, DC 20036ISBN 1-56708-102-9

Grou

p of T

hirty

A N

ew R

egime for

Sylvia O

stryForeign

Direct In

vestmen

t