WAIPA Regional Meetings 2009
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1st WAIPA Regional Meeting of North American IPAs, Dec 2nd – Dec 3rd, 2009, Mexico City, 2009, Mexico.
This first WAIPA Regional Meeting of North American IPAs will usher in a series of other meetings in North America. The meeting seeks to bring together various sub-national IPAs and EDOs as well national IPAs from in North America. The event is being hosted by the WAIPA Directorship for North America, held by ProMexico linked to the Secretaría de Economia, the General Director of which, Mr. Bruno Ferrari, responsible for further internationalizing Mexico’s economy. WAIPA achievements under his term. Training sessions and Experience Sharing will be provided on the two complementary sides of FDI: the attraction of new flows and the attention to the established stockpiles. How to tailor a targeting campaign, on one end, will be the under the responsibility of Katerina Sokolova, of OCO Consulting, whereas Dr. Barbara Samuels, of the Clearing House for Development Finance will tackle, on the opposite end, the After Care measures needed to maintain FDI stock already established.
3rd WAIPA Regional Meeting of South American IPAs, Nov 30th – Dec 2nd, 2009, Bs. As., Argentina. 2nd Capacity Building Workshop for the region’s IPAs: "Investor Targeting in the Services Sector".
This third WAIPA Regional Meeting of South American IPAs follows earlier meetings that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in Medelin, Colombia, in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The event is being hosted by the WAIPA Directorship for South America, held by the Agência Nacional de Desarollo de Inversiones, Prosperar, presided over by Dr. Beatriz Nofal. A Unctad-led workshop will take place during this WAIPA Regional Meeting enhancing the capacity of IPAs at the national and sub-national levels to better target investors in the services sector. Through this workshop, participants will gain a better understanding of how investor targeting is conducted and how these investments may benefit already established companies, fostering economic development of specific locations through the creation of valuable employment.
The WAIPA South American Chapter has invited speakers from both sides of the FDI scene: IPAs and the investing firms. The IPA representative will comment on their investor targeting work and the services sector firm will address the factors that made a certain location attractive and highlight the role played by the IPA in their decision making
1st WAIPA Focus Forum: Focus on Investment Incentives - November 23rd and 24th, 2009, Ljubljana, Slovenia
The Public Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments (JAPTI) will be hosting a WAIPA Focus Meeting in Ljubljana, at the Mons Hotel and Congress Centre, on November 23rd and 24th, 2009. The meeting will count on the participation of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia, which, along with JAPTI will share this Host Country's experience with respect to financial incentives in foreign investment attraction. The Investment Climate Advisory Services, of the WorldBank, represented by Sebastien James will share their recent research work in this area and analyze their findings in the presence of all attendants. Based on both his consulting work and his academic background in the field, Henry Loewendahl will shed some light on how corporations factor incentives into their decision making, analyze different type of incentives, guiding us through the ins and outs of the negotiation an incentive scheme with investing corporations. Professor Kenneth Thomas will share the views of the Global Subsidies Initiative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development and, question whether incentives may be tailored in such a way as to attract sustainable investments. We hope that this varied group of experts in the field will provide the backdrop – against which – attending IPAs will be able to compare their country experiences with the outcome of their research and their vast field experience. WAIPA has in fact earmarked 4 (four) time slots in the first day of the meeting to be used specifically for experience sharing by IPA members.
WAIPA Regional Meeting for EU, 26 May 2009, Madrid, Spain
The Madrid Working Session, organized under the Directorship of Invest in Spain, took place on May 26, 2009. WAIPA President Mr. Alessandro Teixeira opened the session with a brief report of initiatives taken and in the works by WAIPA. The meeting was focused on European IPAs. Mr. Antonio Hernandez presented a draft of a document entitled Why Europe, an initiative of Invest in Spain, that aims to create a marketing piece for Europe as a whole to serve as an investment guide for distribution. Following Mr. Hernandez presentation, Ms. Anne Neumann, of Germany Trade and Invest presented the initiative entitled European Scoreboard, which was jointly conducted by Invest in France Agency and by Germany Trade & Invest. There was an interesting discussion on what data should be included in promotional pieces (i.e. the Why Europe and, also Why South America guide, recently put together by the initiative of Prosperar, presided by Ms. Beatriz Nofal, Regional Director for South America. The follow-up idea of establishing a "working group" of European IPAs to discuss what info is relevant to disseminate, what target group to focus on ensued such discussion. Mr. Christian Miguens and Ms. Ana Paula Guimaraes, legal counsel to ProsperAr and ApexBrasil, respectively, introduced the work done in connection with the Statutory Reform of WAIPA’s founding documents. Among IPAs present were Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, Invest in Sweden Agency, PROMOS Milan, Cyprus Investment Agency, Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency, PROMEXICO, PromoMadrid and IDEA from Spain.
2nd Regional Meeting of South American IPAs, 25-26 March 2009, Medellin, Colombia
The 2nd WAIPA Regional Meeting of South American IPAs took place in Medellin, Colombia, following the 1st WAIPA Regional Meeting of South America of August 28, 2008. This event was held on March 25th and 26th prior to another great summit the city then held: the 50th General Assembly of the Inter American Development Bank (IBD). The event was organized by Agencia de Cooperacion y Inversiones de Medellin y Area Metropolitana (ACI) and under the responsibility of WAIPA Regional Director for South America, ProsperAr, presided by Dr. Beatriz Nofal. The event took place at the convention facilities of the Medellin Botanical Gardens and gathered 18 IPAs from South America and one representative from the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands Investment Bureau. This 2nd WAIPA Regional Meeting of South America was the ideal space to achieve a promotion strategy for South America as a foreign direct investment destination. WAIPA President Alessandro Teixeira was present for the final session of the debate of the document Why South America, a joint effort of ProsperAr, Argentina, ApexBrasil and Pro-Export of Colombia. On Wednesday March 25 the Medellin Municipality shared their experience in terms of image building and social policies that have helped put Medellin back into the investment map. ACI as one WAIPA sub-national members from Colombia represents nowadays a valuable and replicable model for its Latin American sub-national IPA peers. By sharing its experience ACI contributed to WAIPA’s objective of “knowledge sharing” and “exchange of best practices”. On Thursday March 26 a specialized work day was conducted by Henry Loewendahl of FDI Intelligence. The greatest objective this event achieved, however, was to establish a strategy that one hopes should allowed the increase flow of investments to the whole South American region and the preparation, consolidation of a promotional document never before attempted. Dr. Beatriz Nofal, WAIPA Regional Director for South America is to be credited for revealing the strengths and attractiveness of the region as a whole and the systematic gathering of relevant information contained in the soon to be published Why South America guide.
2nd Meeting of Trade and Investment Promotion Agencies and of Latin America and the Caribbean, 23-24 April 2009, San Salvador, El Salvador
“Infrastructure and services for trade and investment - key elements of competitiveness”
The first meeting of The Trade and Investment Promotion Agencies of Latin America and the Caribbean was held in Rio de Janeiro on December, 14 – 16, 2007 under the initiative of APEX-BRAZIL. This first meeting promoted a discussion about the importance and the necessity of inter-regional trade as a key element of economic growth in the region. In this context, El Salvador, through the Comisión Nacional de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones – CONADEI (National Commission for the Promotion of Exports and Investments), which brings together the agencies EXPORTA El Salvador and PROESA, proposed to host a second meeting to discuss the issues related to the inter-regional trade, and in particular Infrastructure and Services for Trade and Investment, the Key Elements of Competitiveness. Challenges and opportunities in the region were tackled with regard to the infrastructure and services for trade facilitation. Trade promotion organizations from other regions were invited, primarily organizations of the Caribbean countries
WAIPA Regional Conference - Rio 2008
The annual Global Investment Conference of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) was held from 3rd to 5th December 2008 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference explored the impact of the financial crisis on both developed and emerging markets.
Hosted by Alessandro Teixeira, President of WAIPA and Brazil’s Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, Apex-Brasil, the important event that brought together international panels of heads of state, government officials, chief executives and distinguished academics, was the first of its kind. The theme of the conference "Foreign Direct Investment: New Scenario and Challenges" examined the redefinition of capitalism as a consequence of current economic instability; trends in foreign direct investment, and strategies relating to the promotion and attraction of investment in times of recession. Read more in the following articles about the discussion of the challenges posed by the current economic slowdown, and the need to redesign the global financial system.