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Bacchus highlighted new chapters in the updated guidelines on emerging topics, including state-owned enterprises and corporate responsibility. The update maintains the fundamental structure from the earlier versions of the ICC guidelines, identifying key recommendations for each of the three main players in investment policy – the investor’s home government, the government of the host country for the investment and the private investor.
A key concept underlying the guidelines is that all three of these actors play important roles in creating successful policies, a welcoming investment climate and beneficial investment projects. In other words, in today’s competitive global economy, good investment policy in not simply a matter of a host government dictating terms to potential investors, but of all three groups working together for mutual benefit.
Bacchus and the other speakers agreed on the vital importance of foreign direct investment, both inward and outbound, in driving economic growth, job creation and competitiveness around the world and here at home. All three speakers noted the need to resist counterproductive investment protectionism, barriers or discrimination against foreign investors.
The three presentations sparked a lively exchange with the audience of academics, business representatives, Congressional staffers and investment policy practitioners. Dan Ikenson, director of Cato’s Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, noted that Cato will be focusing increasingly on international investment issues in the future, as will USCIB.
To view a video of Bacchus’s presentation, please click here.
Staff contact: Shaun Donnelly
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