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OECD meet to discuss foreign investments

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Oct. 30

THE OECD Global Forum on International Investment would deliberate at a two-day conference in Mexico on November 26-27, on how Governments the world over would be able to attract more foreign investment in order to promote sustainable development and red uction in poverty amid a worldwide slowdown.

Hosted by the Government of Mexico, one of the thirty members of the Paris-based inter-governmental think tank of industrial countries, OECD said that after years of growth, worldwide levels of foreign direct investment are likely to have fallen in 2001. Its aim would be to come up with policy messages relevant to all countries, developed and developing alike, for ways of maximising the benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI) for development.

The Mexico's Minister of the Economy, Mr Luis Ernesto Derbez, would open the forum with participants including senior officials from OECD and non-OECD countries in charge of investment policy and promotion and of development issues, as well as representa tives of multilateral organisations, business, labour and civil society.

The OECD Global Forum on International Investment is one of eight ``Global Forums'' being launched by the OECD's Centre for Cooperation with non-members with an objective to deepen relations with non-OECD countries in fields where the OECD has particular expertise and where global dialogue is crucial.

The World Bank, IMF, UNIDO, APEC, Inter-American Development Bank, ADB, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and European Commission are among the multilateral/regional bodies invited to the inaugural meeting.

Special sessions and panels would address ways of broadening government policies beyond traditional approaches, capacity building to reap the full benefits of inward direct investment; and ways for multinational enterprises to contribute effectively to e conomic development, an OECD statement said.