Successful conclusion of negotiations on the world's first multilateral investment agreement text

On July 6th, the World Trade Organization held an ambassadorial level meeting on investment facilitation negotiations. At the meeting, the joint coordinators of the negotiations, Chilean Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Bossa and South Korean Deputy Representative to the World Trade Organization Park Jung seong, issued a statement announcing the successful conclusion of the negotiations on the text of the Investment Facilitation Agreement. The Investment Facilitation Agreement is the world's first multilateral investment agreement, with main rules including improving investment policy transparency, simplifying administrative approval procedures, promoting cross-border investment facilitation cooperation, and promoting sustainable development.
The negotiation results are of great significance
Yao Weiqun, a member of the Expert Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, executive director of the China World Trade Organization Research Association, and executive director of the Strategic Research Institute of the Shanghai International Trade Center, stated in an interview with China Trade Daily that with the emergence of diversity in the internationalization path of enterprises, the relationship between trade and investment has shifted from mutual exclusion to integration. When the World Trade Organization was established, it signed the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs). Later, with the development of economic globalization and regional integration, investment and trade further promoted and developed together. After the G20 Hangzhou Summit, all parties promoted the establishment of investment facilitation issues in the WTO, further incorporating investment into the multilateral trading system.
In May 2017, China led the formation of "Friends of Investment Facilitation" among developing members such as Brazil and Nigeria under the WTO, initiating relevant discussions. "I am an experienced person. In July of that year, I participated in the WTO seminar on promoting multilateral consultations on investment facilitation." Yao Weiqun told reporters that at the conference, he and the participating WTO members shared the main practices and achievements of National treatment plus negative list before the pilot entry of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, filing alternative approval and "one-stop" services, as well as deepening the foreign investment management system and promoting investment facilitation. In 2019, in response to the WTO investment facilitation consultation, APEC held a seminar on optimizing investment measures in the Asia Pacific region in Shanghai. This is also because APEC and WTO have always supported the multilateral trading system and have been promoting multilateral investment agreement negotiations.
In September 2020, the issue of investment facilitation officially entered the negotiation stage of the text. After nearly three years of intensive consultations, all parties have reached an agreement on all issues. On July 6th, the World Trade Organization held an ambassadorial meeting on investment facilitation negotiations, announcing the successful conclusion of negotiations on the text of the Investment Facilitation Agreement. The Director General of the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Iveira, said that the successful conclusion of negotiations on the text of the Investment Facilitation Agreement was a "major achievement", which would help WTO members attract and retain more investment and improve the quality of investment.
The head of the World Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce stated that according to the 2023 World Investment Report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, global foreign direct investment in 2022 was $1.3 trillion, a year-on-year decrease of 12%. At the same time, the current geopolitical, inflationary, and financial market pessimism have brought enormous downward pressure on global foreign direct investment. The Investment Facilitation Agreement is the world's first multilateral investment agreement, which will help enhance the stability and predictability of global investment regulatory policies, further boost global investor confidence, and promote stable global investment growth.
Yao Weiqun stated that "Investment