Upcoming Vale Columbia Center events
As part of its activities, the Vale Columbia Center creates opportunities for leading experts from academia, government, business and non-governmental organizations to exchange views, explore new ideas and help set the policy agenda. For this purpose, it arranges conferences, symposia, and a speakers' series.
Third Columbia International Investment Conference
Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment
Center on Global Legal Problems (Columbia Law School)
World Trade Institute NCCR-IP11 and
University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
Nankai University (China)
FDI by State-Controlled Entities: Do the Rules Need Changing?
Columbia University
New York, NY
October 1-2, 2008
The process of global economic integration has accelerated during the past three decades, with world foreign direct investment (FDI) flows rising from $40-50 billion at the beginning of the 1980s to $1.5 trillion in 2007. Yet, in spite of the trend towards market liberalization and privatization during this period, the role of the state has arguably become more important in recent years. Indeed, many of the emerging market state-owned enterprises that survived the earlier waves of privatization are now flourishing, thanks in particular to booming global commodity prices and increased export earnings. Emerging market governments are also drawing on their accumulating exchange reserves to establish sovereign wealth funds for investment abroad. These two developments have contributed to a substantial increase of outward FDI from emerging markets, reaching $210 billion in 2006 (five times world FDI flows during the early 1980s).
In response to the rising importance of state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds – collectively referred to here as “state-controlled entities” (SCEs) – policy-makers are re-thinking their own investment regulatory frameworks. The world has thus witnessed a resurgence of the role of the state vis-à-vis markets, with governments acting as both a source of – and potential impediment to – FDI.
The principal issues raised by this phenomenon will be addressed systematically in a conference – to take place October 1-2, 2008 at Columbia University – organized by the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, in cooperation with Columbia Law School’s Center on Global Legal Problems; the World Trade Institute NCCR-IP11 and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland); and Nankai University (China). The Conference will examine the role of state-controlled entities in the world FDI market, with a particular emphasis on the role of sovereign investment agencies (those parts of SWFs engaged in FDI), and will explore the range of policy responses being considered to deal with this problématique.
In the context of this event, the issue of FDI by state-controlled entities will be the special topic of the annual World Investment Prospects to 2012, a joint publication of The Economist Intelligence Unit and the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment.
If you are interested in participating or wish to obtain more information on this event, please send an e-mail to VCC@law.columbia.edu.