Professor Kevin Ibeh, Professor of Marketing and International Business and Head of the Department of Marketing, was recently in Vienna as an expert panellist for a World Bank workshop in Foreign Direct Investment from Emerging Markets. The workshop attracted Investment Climate, Investment Promotion and Investment Policy staff from the World Bank Group and other development promoting institutions, senior government officials, foreign direct investors, and investment consultants.
Professor Ibeh used the platform to update the participants on the main trends in Foreign Direct Investments from emerging economies and the increased importance of these in the overall global flows of foreign direct investments. He also shared key findings from his continuing pioneering research on indigenous Transnational Corporations from rising Africa, and highlighted major investment climate/policy issues facing these emerging Transnational Corporations, including how policy makers might mitigate these issues.
The other panellists include Ms Birgit Reiter-Braunwieser, Director for Central and Eastern Europe at ABA-Invest, Austria's Investment Promotion agency, Radnesh Pant, CEO of the Investment Board in Nepal, and Joao Pedro Taborda, Director for Public Policy at Embraer, the Brazilian multinational aircraft manufacturer. Ms Reiter-Braunwieser and Mr Pant discussed the work of their respective investment promotion organisations, including their approach to attracting and incentivising inward FDI from advanced and emerging economies. Mr Taborda highlighted the relationship management issues underpinning the investment activities of multinational corporations.
The workshop, which featured comments and questions from the highly engaged audience, was chaired by Mr Joe Battat, Senior Consultant to the World Bank Group. It was jointly hosted by Mr Robert Whyte, World Bank Group's Global Product Specialist for Investment Policy and Senior Specialist for Investment Promotion, and Ivan Nimac, Head of the Vienna Office of the Investment Climate Department, World Bank Group.
This invitation reflects Professor Ibeh's continuing engagement with the Investment Climate Advisory Services team of the World Bank Group, to which he first served as Consultant during 2009.