(EGM) Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia - Unido

The themes of the EGM have been carefully selected in an attempt to capture the essential
problems, policy challenges and mechanisms for generating policy solutions for economies and
industrial sectors operating under different dynamic conditions and moving along different
trajectories. The competition for recently diminished flows of FDI is increasingly intense – and
the sharing of valuable experience and best practise derived from success in attracting FDI,
informed research and the latest thinking on the dynamics of FDI and the behaviour of
Multinational Enterprises is vitally important.
The strategies of developing countries attempt to enable their economies to compete more
effectively for FDI using a variety of policy designs, frameworks and instruments that, in
application, create differing characteristics in their FDI climates. The Asian experience of FDI
holds significant lessons for other developing regions. This particularly so with respect to path
dependency; and the role of the state in integrating the local and regional economies with the
global economy. This EGM, through its discursive process will assist in advancing the state-of-
the art in policy making.
I have just attended the Second International Investment Promotion Forum held in Tianjin,
China during 17 – 18 March which was hosted by the authorities of the Tianjin Economic
Technological Development Area. That Investment Promotion Forum demonstrates that --
even with its impressive flows of FDI -- China is not standing still in its attempt to enhance its
institutional skills, policy knowledge and promotional capability in matters related to FDI. The
need for increasing capacity and capability, knowledge and skills through shared experience and
practise is therefore absolutely necessary and UNIDO is privileged to be able to facilitate an
EGM such as this in order to assist developing countries.
Permit me to make one or two indications about the faculty of Experts that UNIDO has
gathered for the purpose of this EGM. Knowledge and practise are intricately woven together
and the body of the knowledge and the practise of FDI encapsulated by the Experts here is
considerable. You will get to know them collectively and individually in the course of the next
three working days. They represent collectively authorship of over 80 books and over 300
articles on FDI. Collectively they are responsible for over 1500 citations in the discipline of the
international business of FDI. Individually, we have among us leading consultants to leading
corporations and the international agencies – and each has published an authoritative work on
the subject in the last five years. Our Experts have contributed to the international thinking not
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