The UN Secretary-General on Sunday said he was committed to ensuring that the Organisation is a place where “youth voices are heard, and their ideas lead”, as he spent the day in Barbados which tomorrow hosts a major UN conference on trade and development, focused on the need to build a global green economy and recover equitably from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Foreign direct investment flows are liable to drop by 30 to 40 per cent during 2020, into next year, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting a far more severe economic blow that initially projected, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Thursday in its latest Investment Trends Monitor report.
The “digital giants” of the world economy are having a major impact but global flows of foreign direct investment remain well below their 2007 peak, before the global markets crashed.
That’s the mixed picture emerging from the World Investment Report 2017 published on Wednesday by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
A new global agreement that makes trade cheaper, easier and faster has been welcomed by the UN trade body, UNCTAD.
The Trade Facilitation Agreement could reduce costs by as much as 23 per cent, resulting in export gains of between US$750 billion and US$1trillion.
The deal, which came into force on Wednesday, aims to streamline procedures that will increase international trade, reduce corruption and boost development.
