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ECA Press Release No. 29/2004
AFRICAN EXPERTS DISCUSS IMPROVED MANAGEMENT OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT
Addis Ababa, 22 November 2004 (ECA) - A workshop to help African specialists increase and strengthen management of foreign investment flows has opened in Addis Ababa.
Harmonizing information and data related to foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa is seen as crucial to increasing FDI flows to and between African countries.
The workshop is sponsored by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and Germany's InWEnt, Capacity Building International, so that African countries may more effectively collect and analyse FDI-related information, and better target their economic policies.
"Strategic dialogue and interaction between the policy makers in most countries of the region on FDI has also been virtually absent," said a representative of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. "As a result, African countries are not able to rapidly respond to the changing global investment environment."
The workshop, hosted at ECA, aims to strengthen the institutional capacities in the region, in the area of collection and compilation of statistics, and related policymaking on FDI.
It will also address issues related to the compilation of comparable, systematic and consistent statistics on FDI.
Sixteen participants from twelve African countries will participate in hands-on training on methodology and instruments for compiling comparable and consistent FDI and other transnational corporation-related data.
During the workshop, FDI country profiles and analyses will be presented, with special attention to intra-African FDI.
Africa exported $1.3 billion of FDI in 2003, proportionately about a tenth of total FDI inflows to the region.
In the absence of accurate and reliable information, national investment policies continue to focus mostly on non-African sources of FDI. But as Africa's economies grow and regional integration improves, opportunities are increasing for intra-African FDI to increase.
A major outcome expected from the workshop is the establishment of a regional "Task Force of FDI data compilers", to advance the regional harmonization of FDI statistics.
Countries participating include Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi and Mauritius. The others are Senegal, Sierra-Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
For further inquiries please contact:
Ms Cristina Muller
Communication Officer, ESPD UNECA
Tel: +251 1 44-45-01 Fax:+251 1 51-03-89 Email : [email protected]
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