New UNCTAD Policy Brief focuses specifically on the need to boost investment in productive capacities for trade. It brings together some of the key messages and recommendations of the UNCTAD World Investment Reports, Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development and Economic Development in Africa Report 2014: Catalysing Investment for Transformative Growth in Africa.
The report of the Secretary-General to the fourteenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 14) highlights the importance of building productive capacity and providing economic transformation. It emphasizes the role of investment, trade, technology and entrepreneurship, and the nexus between them, as important means to achieve this.
There is a virtuous circle between trade and investment policy; the complementarities between them and the interdependence of trade and investment require greater coordination at the national, regional and international levels.
As the following figure illustrates, targeted policy interventions on both the trade and investment sides could help to boost productive capacities, exports and the eventual structural transformation of the world’s poorest economies.
