Developing country investment negotiators from around the world meeting in Port-of-Spain

PORT-OF-SPAIN—October 26, 2012—The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is co-hosting a meeting of developing country negotiators with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the CARICOM Secretariat and the South Centre, to share information and develop strategies that further common development goals.

The Sixth Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators takes place in Port-of-Spain from October 29-31, 2012, and is expected to draw over 70 participants from Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, representing over 30 countries.

Several regional and international organizations are also attending, including the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Caribbean Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (CAIPA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

The theme of this year's event is "understanding and harnessing new models for investment and sustainable development". The forum is part of an ongoing effort to help developing countries incorporate sustainable development issues into their international investment treaty negotiations, such as those now underway between CARICOM and Canada.

This year's Forum focuses on how to ensure the developmental goals and objectives of developing countries are promoted by international, regional and bilateral investment agreements.

The forum builds upon the successes of the five previous forums held in Singapore (2007), Morocco (2008), Ecuador (2009), India (2010) and Uganda (2011).

This event responds to a growing demand from developing countries for a counterbalance to the OECD Investment Committee as a place for developed country negotiators and policy-makers on investment. The forums have created a space for developing countries to freely consider and develop their own negotiating priorities and goals in relation to international investment treaties.

For over ten years, IISD has been providing technical assistance to investment negotiators across the developing world and the demand for our services has been growing in recent years. In order to maximize the sharing of experience—positive and negative—IISD decided to convene an annual forum of investment negotiators from developing countries.

This is the first time the annual forum will be held in the Caribbean region.

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For more information on previous events, please visit http://www.iisd.org/investment/dci/ or contact Flavia Thomé at [email protected] or Yolande Agard-Simmons at [email protected].