The role played by foreign trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in development, as well as integration agreements of Latin American and Caribbean countries and their place in global value chains, will be analysed at a two-day seminar to be held in Santiago, Chile, on 3 and 4 June.
Osvaldo Rosales, Director of the International Trade and Intregration Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Michael Penfold, Director for Public Policy and Competitiveness at CAF (Latin American Development Bank), and Masataka Fujita, Head of the Investment Issues and Trends Branch of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), will open the event, due to be held at ECLAC headquarters.
The meeting participants will analyse global trends and foreign direct investment in Latin American countries. In recent years, the region has seen major growth in levels of international trade and remarkable economic stability, which have in turn boosted inflows of investment.
Against this background, experts will review case studies including the emergence of Latin American multinationals and the policy of the National Development Bank of Brazil to support the internationalization of Brazilian trans-Latins.
The regulation of FDI in Latin America and the Caribbean will also be analysed during panel discussions at the seminar, where participants will discuss options for the next wave of reforms to the investment climate and the framework of investment policies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
In addition, delegates will analyse the link between foreign direct investment and development in the region's countries, and in particular the role it plays in innovation and the well-being of the population.
The seminar will close with a debate on global value chains, which will be analysed in terms of the patterns that shape them and their implications. The experts will also provide an overview of these chains in Latin America, and the role of productive integration as a strategic axis for more inclusive development.
The discussions will be based around the following documents: Regional integration: towards an inclusive value chain strategy, América Latina y el Caribe en las cadenas internacionales de valor (Latin America and the Caribbean in international value chains), Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy, 2013, from the ECLAC Division of International Trade and Integration, and Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2013, from the Division of Production, Productivity and Management.
