To their credit, it was OECD governments that took the initiative in launching the negotiations. Incoming investments create jobs and almost always offer local consumers new and better products and services. They significantly improve social and environmental standards in recipient countries. Business will benefit because a coherent international set of rules for foreign investment will improve access to markets and resources and provide an incentive to greater efficiency. Increased competition will ensure that efficiency gains are passed on to consumers.
Foreign investment is a win-win proposition.
It has been growing much faster than trade in goods and services and is the driving force behind globalisation. But any agreement reached at the OECD must have much wider application to be effective. Non-OECD countries will have to be brought in. This is why business sees a role for the World Trade Organization. Bearing in mind the undoubted benefits of foreign investment, OECD governments must ask themselves why, despite three years of negotiation in the OECD and the accumulation of a mountain of country-specific exceptions and concessions, agreement on binding rules for the treatment of foreign investment was beyond their grasp.