(EGM) Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia - Unido

Preface
This UNIDO report presents the key issues and outcomes from the papers,
presentations and deliberations of the UNIDO expert group meeting (EGM)
on Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia: Experience and Future Policy
Implications for Developing Countries. The EGM, held in March 2005 in
Bangkok, Thailand, concerned the primary objective of delineating the factors
and variables of foreign direct investment (FDI) to which national
industrialisation and investment policies need to be attuned.
The EGM aimed to provide the policy-making community and business
leaders in Southeast Asia with a broad view of the fundamental issues, and a
deep appreciation of the inter-relationships, pertaining to FDI activity. These
relationships determine structural factors in: i) the intermediation role of
multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the international economy; ii) the
changing characteristics of markets, traded goods and services within world
economic activity; and iii) regional vectors of (spatially distributed)
manufacturing and services provision.
It is important to state here what the report does, and does not, seek to do.
It does not seek to present an exhaustive analysis of the evolution of the
regulatory framework of trade rules within which FDI, foreign portfolio
investment (FPI) and international contracting occurs. Nor does it
comprehensively survey the underlying motivations and rationale for FDI.
The report does, however, attempt to articulate current thinking on the
nature of the issues which are crucial to FDI policy craft today, as identified
by experts, informed researchers, experienced practitioners and pragmatic
policy-makers.
The thematic programme of the EGM, which draws on the experience and
expertise enunciated above, is presented in Appendix I. A year in
preparation, the EGM brought together some of the leading international
5