WAIPA was delighted to be part of the Annual Investment Meeting Congress, which took place last week in Dubai, UAE. It was a pleasure to organize and partner at 5 different events; a pre-conference workshop, training course, Steering Committee meeting, and a book launch. Here are the highlights of this work-filled and enjoyable week where we had the opportunity to also meet with friends, colleagues, members, and partners.
FDI Excellence Series: Attracting Quality FDI
The first session of the FDI Excellence Series 2022 edition was the first WAIPA event during this week and was focused on “Attracting Quality Investment” and gaining essential knowledge and skills for identifying and attracting high-value investment projects and maximizing the benefits of FDI for their economies.
Participants from Lesotho, India, Ghana, Panama, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and Azerbaijan joined us for two days of insightful sessions on:
✔️ Global FDI Trends: Which sectors are generating projects and what types of companies are most actively expanding their international presence
✔️ Defining Quality Investment: How to identify FDI that contributes to location’s overall economic and social goals and is aligned with government policy
✔️ Providing customized value and support: How Dubai CommerCity has developed a suite of ‘E-commerce-as-a-Service’ offerings that reflects the needs of the target companies that it is seeking to attract to its e-commerce ecosystem.
✔️ Identifying Quality Investor: how to identify companies that may have plans for specific kinds of investment
✔️ India’s approach to attracting quality investment: how Invest India has been able to attract quality FDI in the electronics sector
✔️ Providing value: how agencies around the world are developing innovative types of support in response to the changing needs of investors
✔️ Attracting Sustainable Investment: a case study of how InvestChile changed critical functions of the agency to be able to successfully attract sustainable FDI
✔️ Measuring Impact: different methods that IPAs around the world are using to measure and communicate their performance and the impact of FDI
This training was organized by WAIPA in collaboration with Andreas Dressler and FDI Center, hosted by the Annual Investment Meeting.
Pre-Conference Workshop
The WAIPA “Integrating innovative approaches in investment promotion” pre-conference workshop was held on the day before the official opening of the Annual Investment Meeting, with a great array of participants from different locations.
The participants have gained insights into how IPAs can support governments in terms of trends and talent creation as well as supporting investors. Furthermore, they have learned what tools they can use in their daily work and how they see the future of investment promotion.
Valuable insights, expertise, and experiences on the topic were presented by our colleagues from UNIDO, Invest India, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (CAIPA).
Thank you all for joining us!
WAIPA Steering Committee Meeting
The WAIPA Steering Committee meeting was held this week on the sidelines of the Annual Investment Meeting in Dubai. The hybrid meeting gathered regional directors of WAIPA to discuss the achievements of the first quarter, the further plan, and strategic goals for the near future.
The SC board has also elected the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority as the regional director of South Asia for which the position stayed vacant after the elections in 2021.
In the regards of the current global events, the Steering Committee has also hosted Krzysztof Drynda, CEO of Polish Investment and Trade Agency and Stelian Manic, General Director of Invest Moldova as guests at the meeting.
Finally, the debate also included preparations for the 26th WAIPA World Investment Conference, which will be held this year on 13-14 September in Geneva, Switzerland.
Investment Aftercare Explained: Book launch
“Investment Aftercare Explained. A Guide for FDI Practitioners and Policymakers on How to Grow and Retain Investors,” the first book to systematically map the last step of a foreign investor’s journey, was launched today at the Annual Investment Meeting in Dubai, UAE. Speakers at the launch included next to one of its authors Carolina Arriagada Peters, also former WAIPA President and CEO of DubaiFDI H.E. Fahad Al Gergawi, and Ismail Ersahin, Executive Director, a.i., of WAIPA.
The book provides a wide range of approaches and strategies for host economies to better grow and retain foreign investors, encourage follow-up expansions, achieve greater local economic embeddedness, encourage multi-stakeholder dialogue and foster local value co-creation.
“Aftercare is an essential service that IPAs offer. Being in close touch with existing investors helps IPAs to understand and learn their concerns and problems, but also their ideas and future investment opportunities. Therefore, WAIPA collaborates closely with the HCFI on the joint-programme “IPAs Capacity 2030” to establish future-fit learning and development trajectories for IPA, for them to offer state-of-the-art services benefiting locations and investors alike” said Ismail Ersahin.
Written by seasoned FDI advisor Carolina Arriagada Peters, senior economist David Coble, assistant professor Toby X. Li and serial foreign investor Brendan Lewis, the book maps the last step of the foreign investor’s journey, usually referred to as post-investment, aftercare or business retention and expansion.