Author(s)
World Bank GroupKeywords
INVESTMENT POLICY FRAMEWORKLEGAL INSTRUMENTS
FOREIGN INVESTMENT
KEY INSTITUTIONS
PROMOTION STRATEGY
INVESTMENT ENTRY AND ESTABLISHMENT
INVESTMENT PROTECTION
INVESTMENT INCENTIVES
INVESTMENT LINKAGES
RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT
Full record
Show full item recordOnline Access
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099010209062226616/P173938066df040f30a8a109d7b0d631311http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37980
Abstract
This Investment Policy and Regulatory
 Review (IPRR) is organized as follows: section two provides
 an overview of the country’s investment policy framework,
 including the legal instruments regulating foreign
 investment, key institutions involved in investment
 promotion, as well as the country’s foreign investment
 promotion strategy; it also delineates the country’s
 international investment legal framework, including the
 country’s commitments under the World Trade Organization
 (WTO) and select international investment agreements (IIAs);
 sections three-six cover the country’s policies and domestic
 legal framework concerning different dimensions of the
 lifecycle of an investment: entry and establishment (section
 three), protection (four), incentives (five) and linkages
 (six); sections seven and eight explore emerging investment
 policy and regulatory areas, section seven considers outward
 FDI and section eight responsible investment; section nine
 focuses on city-specific investment policy and regulatory
 measures in the largest commercial center; and section 10
 covers FDI in the digital economy.Date
2022-09-08Type
ReportIdentifier
oai:openknowledge.worldbank.org:10986/37980http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099010209062226616/P173938066df040f30a8a109d7b0d631311
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37980
Copyright/License
CC BY 3.0 IGOCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Sovereign Wealth Funds and Long-Term Development Finance : Risks and OpportunitiesTordo, Silvana; Arfaa, Noora; Halland, Havard; Gelb, Alan; Smith, Gregory (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-02)Sovereign wealth funds represent a large
 and growing pool of savings. An increasing number of these
 funds are owned by natural resource exporting countries and
 have a variety of objectives, including intergenerational
 equity and macroeconomic stabilization. Traditionally, these
 funds have invested in external assets, especially
 securities traded in major markets. But the persistent
 infrastructure financing gap in developing countries has
 motivated some governments to encourage their sovereign
 wealth funds to invest domestically. This paper proposes
 some basic elements of a conceptual framework to create a
 system of checks and balances to help ensure that the
 sovereign wealth funds do not undermine macroeconomic
 management or become a vehicle for politically driven
 "investments." First, the risks and opportunities
 of domestic investment by sovereign wealth funds are
 analyzed. Central issues are the relationship of sovereign
 wealth fund financing to the budget process and to the
 procurement systems of sector ministries, as well as the
 establishment of appropriate benchmarks and safeguards to
 ensure the integrity of investment decisions. The paper
 argues that a well-governed sovereign wealth fund, with a
 sound mandate and professional management and staffing, can
 possibly improve the quality of the public investment
 program. But its mandate should not duplicate that of other
 government institutions with investment mandates, such as
 the budget, the national development bank, the investment
 authority, and state-owned enterprises. Establishing rules
 on the type of investment (for example, commercial and/or
 quasi-commercial) and its modalities (for example, no
 controlling stakes, leveraging private investment) is one
 way to ensure separation between the activities of the
 sovereign wealth fund and those of other institutions. The
 critical issue remains that of limiting the sovereign wealth
 fund's investment scope to that appropriate for a
 wealth fund. If investments that generate quasi-market
 returns are permitted, the size of the home bias should be
 clearly stipulated and these investments should be reported separately.
-
Investment Law ReformWorld Bank Group (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-10-19)The chief purpose of this handbook is to
 provide government lawyers with a framework to evaluate the
 quality of a country's investment legislation (if it
 exists) and how the legislation relates to its investment
 policy and investment incentives. More specifically, it
 deals with creating new and reforming existing investment
 legislation in developing and transition economies in
 furtherance of the World Bank Group's (WBG's)
 mandate to promote private investment - domestic and foreign
 - in those economies. Handbook appendices contain drafting
 guidelines and checklist of issues that foreign direct
 investment (FDI) laws should include and that countries can
 use when drafting investment legislation. The report is
 structured as follows: chapter one defines key terms about
 investment law reform in an effort to clarify terminology
 and concepts and show how they are related. Chapter two
 examines how widespread investment codes are and explains
 their utility and limitations. Chapter three provides
 recommendations on the structure of investment legislation
 and the key provisions to be included such as definitions,
 investors' guarantees, incentives, framework for
 investment promotion, and transitional provisions. Chapter
 four discusses the fundamental issue of investor entry, in
 particular the conditions under which foreign investors can
 invest including sectoral restrictions, limitations on
 foreign ownership, authorization and screening, minimum
 investment, and performance requirements. Chapter five
 discusses key investor guarantees including fair and
 equitable treatment, national treatment, most-favored-nation
 (MFN) treatment, protection against expropriation,
 guaranteed convertibility and repatriation of profits, and
 settlement of disputes. Chapter six looks at the issue of
 investment incentives, (fiscal incentives in particular) and
 their effectiveness. Chapter seven summarizes key aspects of
 investment promotion to guide legal drafters, should
 policymakers want the investment code to set out the basic
 framework of investment promotion. Chapter eight presents
 the various phases of investment law reform projects, from
 the government's request for assistance with
 legislation to the delivery of a project plan. Chapter nine
 identifies some of the challenges in preparing an investment
 code and the support that governments may need until the law
 is promulgated. Chapter ten discusses the monitoring and
 evaluation (M and E) of investment law reforms, including
 the key indicators involved in a desk review and medium- and
 large-scale projects.
-
Sovereign Wealth Funds in East AsiaWorld Bank (Washington, DC, 2013-03-11)The massive size, rapid growth, and
 high-profile investments of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in
 the U.S. and elsewhere in 2007 has attracted the attention
 of the media, politicians, regulators, and academics over
 the past year. Some of the SWF investments have been viewed
 as market stabilizing, for instance the substantial equity
 investments in large U.S. financial institutions that were
 recently in financial trouble after the sub-prime mortgage
 crisis. However, there is great suspicion from many
 political and academic quarters that SWFs are politically
 motivated with many SWFs in Asia now at the center of the
 storm. Although SWFs have been in existence for many decades
 worldwide, most SWFs in the East Asia and Pacific Region
 (EAP) are relatively new. The emergence of the SWFs in Asia
 is largely a by-product of the strong economic development
 at East Asian countries and the attendant accumulation of
 foreign exchange reserves, however, there are other types of
 SWFs in the region. The Governments have taken a concerted
 strategy to enhance the returns on these excess reserves.
 The EAP region is an ideal region to take a look at the
 issues surrounding SWFs since Asia has the full range of
 funds from long-established funds to brand new funds; from
 passive portfolio investors to more aggressive strategic
 investors; from resource-backed funds to foreign
 reserve-backed funds; and, based in the largest, most highly
 developed economies to the smallest, poorest economies in
 Asia. Therefore, the objective of this report is to document
 the status of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the East Asia Region
 and to understand the implications of their rapid growth.
 Many developing countries have recently shifted a higher
 proportion of their foreign currency earnings from official
 foreign currency reserves to sovereign wealth funds.
 Sovereign wealth funds have an estimated $600 billion in
 assets under management in developing countries, dominated
 by China ($200 billion held by the Chinese Investment
 Corporation and $68 billion held by the Central Huijin
 Investment Company) and Russia ($130 billion held in the
 Reserve Fund and $33 billion held by the Fund of Future
 Generations). It should be noted that this amount is small
 relative to the total level of reserves held by developing
 countries (estimated at $3.7 trillion at end 2007).