UNCTAD and the study of globalization Michael Hanni Economist Division on Investment and Enterprise UNCTAD

UNCTAD and the study of globalization UNCTAD, FDI, and foreign affiliates statistics  What does UNCTAD bring to this discussion?  What are we doing? Putting the pieces together: the expanding networks of multinational enterprises  “Global factory”, integrated international networks, and the challenges for statistics and analysis

What does UNCTAD bring to this discussion? UNCTAD serves as the focal point within the UN system on investment issues. This includes a core competency in the collection of FDI/TNC statistics and research on FDI related development and policy issues As such, we are primarily secondary compilers of your data (thank you!)  Having global scope gives us a unique view into the difficulties you face

What are we working with? FDI/TNC operations: more than 1 million entries on detail geographical and industry breakdown of FDI flows and stocks, and more than 2 million entries on the activities of TNCs (parent firms and foreign affiliates) Largest TNCs: firm level data on the largest 100 TNCs in the world and the largest 100 TNCs from developing and transition economies) Cross-border M&As: data covering more than 86,000 individual M&A transaction from 1987 onwards

Issues we face as secondary compilers and researchers Reliability/completeness of data:  FDI: differing levels of data availability by country, especially when it comes to industry/partner data as well as component data  TNC activities data: different coverage in variables, and availability of industry/partner data (especially 2-dimensional data) Usefulness:  Issues related to the ultimate ownership (especially related to flows in developing countries, are the Cayman Islands really a major investor in the developing world?)

Issues we face as secondary compilers and researchers Comparability:  FDI and TNC activities: bilateral data is highly sensitive to sampling/weighting in each compiling country, often leading to very different results (how large is the US presence in the Czech Republic? 23,000 or 66,000 jobs?)  TNC activities: availability of comparative data, for example: employment by sector, etc. Timeliness:  We often collect as soon as you publish, but often that is not fast enough for our primary customers Most important issue we face: existence of data  In many of the most important countries for our research there is little or no data

Things we are working on… Putting your statistics to work!  Research: WIR series and more to provide policymakers with a comprehensive picture of specific FDI/TNC related development topics WIR 2009: FDI and agricultural production WIR 2010: Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy  Policy advocacy: development of actionable policy advice based on our best reading of data – not only FDI/TNC, but trade and more

Things we are working on… Technical assistance to improve the statistical capability of developing and transition economies (usually in cooperation with national compilers like yourselves)  Assistance in implementing the Common Survey and establishing an effective survey system to collect and disseminate data on FDI flows/stock as well as the activities of foreign affiliates  Recent national and regional workshops: Albania, Belarus, Burundi, Comoros, Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Viet Nam, Zambia

Putting the pieces together: the expanding networks of MNEs Globalization as a phenomenon is continuing to evolve, manifesting itself in different ways  Non-equity modalities are an important aspect of this evolution and our ability to view this activity is limited Licensing, franchising, contract manufacturing, contract farming, management contracts and the like  Making sure that we capture the unique impact related to FDI and non-equity modalities is also tricky (no double counting!)

Of course, this isn’t really that new…

Putting the pieces together: the expanding networks of MNEs Future work includes mapping this evolution in order to give developing- country policymakers additional tools and policy advice We need your help!

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