20/11/2002 - The 2002 annual conference of the OECD Global Forum on International Investment (GFII), will be held in Shanghai, China, on 5-6 December 2002, hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation.

The Forum is open to the media. A press conference will be held at The Westin Shanghai Hotel (88, Henan Central Road, Shanghai, China (Tel: 86 2163 35 18 88 Fax: 86 2163 35 28 88), at 12.45 p.m. on Friday, 6 December 2002.

The main theme of this year's Forum is "Attracting Foreign Direct Investment for Development". Its objective is to achieve progress in three distinct fields:

• The development of good practices in creating an enabling environment for investment including in the area of investment incentives;
• Maximising development benefits, including through linkages with local enterprises and supply chain management; an
• Improved insight on official development assistance and FDI linkages, and the extent to which the liberalisation of FDI and that of other financial flows are mutually supportive.

Participants, by invitation only, will include high-level officials from OECD and non-OECD economies in charge of investment policy, promotion and development issues. Multilateral and regional institutions invited include, inter alia, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organisation, the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies, the Asian Development Bank, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, the European Union, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the Black Sea Economic Co-operation. There will also be strong presence from business, labour, academia and civil society organisations.

The GFII is an open and inclusive platform to discuss emerging investment issues among key international stakeholders. It aims to share the wide range of experiences of OECD Member countries with non-discriminatory investment policies, corporate responsibility and standard setting, building on the OECD's long-standing relationship with the investors' community, labour, NGOs and non-Members. It also aims to learn from the varied experiences and perspectives of non-OECD countries.

The theme of this year's Forum responds to the international community's calls at the WTO Ministerial Declaration in Doha last November, the Monterrey Consensus in March 2002, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August/September 2002, to mobilise international investment in support of development. It will draw on OECD committee analytical and policy development work, as well as co-operation with key investment actors.

Conference agenda, papers and further details are available on http://www.oecd.org/daf/investment.

To register for the Forum, journalists are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division in Paris and Jennifer Macgillivray (Fax: [33] 1 44 30 61 35). To arrange interviews or for other information, please contact Mehmet Ögütçü in the OECD's Directorate for Financial, Fiscal and Enterprise Affairs (Fax: [33] 1 44 30 61 35). The contact person in Shanghai is Mr. Kong Fuan (Tel: 86 21 62 75 22 00 ext 258, Fax 86 21 62 75 15 76).