G20 Guiding Principles for Global Investment Policy-making

Abstract

One of the most important and concrete outcomes of China’s G20 presidency was the establishment of a Trade and Investment Working Group (TIWG), recognizing that robust and sustainable trade and investment reinforces economic growth and calling for enhanced G20 trade and investment cooperation. The Chinese presidency’s renewed approach was not only to bring stand-alone investment issues to the G20 table, but also to re-spark the conversation on investment and trade policy-making by bringing them closer together again, acknowledging the complementarity of trade and investment as the engines of economic growth. This has paved the way for coherent, integrated discussions on trade and investment for the first time in fifteen years in the global political arena. On the investment side, the TIWG delivered the G20 Guiding Principles for Global Investment Policy-Making (G20 Guiding Principles), a key outcome of the Chinese presidency. These were endorsed by trade ministers in Shanghai in July 2016 and then by heads of state at the Hangzhou Summit in September 2016, with the objective of fostering an open, transparent, and conducive global policy environment for investment; promoting coherence in national and international investment policy-making; and promoting inclusive economic growth and sustainable development. The G20 Guiding Principles are introduced in the chapter. It begins with a background review of their crafting and various attempts at devising guiding principles on international investment, and identifies some of the guidelines that have paved the way for the Principles. The chapter then focuses on the objectives, scope, and content of the G20 Guiding Principles and considers their potential impact on policy-making at the domestic and international levels. Finally, the chapter addresses the broader work of the G20 TIWG, including the trade and investment linkage, analyses the general state of play of G20 countries’ investment agreements, and offers some preliminary conclusions and ways forward.