Investment Facilitation for Development: what’s at stake at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization?

Berger, Axel / Zoryana Olekseyuk
External Publications (2024)

published on blogs.idos-research.de, 23.02.2024

In a new post on the Future of Globalisation Blog, Axel Berger and Zoryana Olekseyuk of IDOS look at the proposed Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) ahead of the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Abu Dhabi next week. At MC13, more than two-thirds of the WTO’s Membership aims to finalise the negotiations and integrate the plurilateral IFD Agreement into the WTO legal system. They see the IFD Agreement as a chance to attract new foreign investment flows to support sustainable development. At the same time, a number of WTO Members are opposed to the inclusion of the IFD Agreement into the WTO’s rulebook and question its value added. Berger and Olekseyuk ask why the IFD Agreement is so controversial and what we know about its potential economic effects. On the basis of new and unique data set – the Investment Facilitation Index – they show that the economic benefits of the IFD Agreement can be significant, especially for low and middle income countries. However, in order to reap the benefits of the IFD Agreement these countries need additional technical assistance and capacity development support to adopt and implement investment facilitation measures.