OECD - Debate the issues : investment

The 2015 meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level explored the importance of investment in placingeconomies on sustainable growth paths while addressing inequalities, encouraging innovation, helping the transition towards low-carbon economies, and financing the UNs Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). As Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte put it, Our priorities are three Is: Investment, Investment and Investment!.

International investment is so important because it makes economic globalisation, and the growth and jobs itbrings, possible. Investment provides the finance needed to build value chains that stretch across the planet. It facilitates the trade that allows goods and services to be moved to where they areneeded.

International investment also helps domestic economies to grow too, both directly by giving local firms the meansto expand in home and export markets, as well as indirectly through access to the investors expertise, experience and networks.

The issue for governments is how to encourage international investment and to maximise the benefits. They havebeen successful in eliminating overt discrimination against foreign investors but it has become clear during the crisis that many structural impediments continue to hold investment back. Governmentsneed to tackle these structural barriers so that investment can flow towards the projects, firms and places that need it most. Governments need to encourage longer-term productive investment in thefirms and ideas that will be sources of growth, rather than in the short-term strategies that provided such a fertile breeding ground for the crisis.

Getting it right means finding the best balance between multiple, sometimes competing, economic goals, socialneeds, and political constraints and the interests of stakeholders ranging from huge multinational corporations to private citizens.

The following eclectic collection of articles from the OECD Insights blog brings together the personal views ofauthors from the OECD and outside the Organisation on the trends and challenges shaping international investment today. Youll find discussions and debates on the state of investment in differentregions of the world, the issues facing investment in particular sectors, the institutional frameworks that govern international financial flows, and the policy options that will allow investment tosupport better lives for all.