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NEW ECONOMIC FRONTIERments with investment components have increased substantially over the past decade, particularly for developing and transition economies. Asian countries have seen the largest increase of such agreements vis-à-vis other countries within Asia and with other regions. As of 2004, Asian economies had a total of 866 DTTs and 956 BITs with Asian and other countries.
Such agreements encourage and facilitate investment flows through liberalization and protection of foreign investment. In the past, developing countries signed international investment agreements mainly with developed countries, but recently they have been very active in signing such agreements with other developing countries. As of the end of 2004, the number of BITs between developing countries—South-South BITs—stood at roughly 1,046 (about 40
percent of the BIT universe, while South-
South DTTs reached roughly 374 or about 19 percent of the total DTTs worldwide see figure 3.15. Of the existing agreements, roughly 50 percent have been signed and are in force.
China, India, and South Africa are among the top 10 developing countries that have signed the most BITs and DTTs with other developing countries (as well as with developed countries. China at 112 has the highest number of BITs, while India at 83 has the highest number of DTTs. China by far has the most BITs
with other African countries, while India tends to have more DTTs with African countries. Table 3.17 provides a detailed look at BITs and DTTs signed between China and India, and various African countries.
Effectiveness of BITsSome studies show that, despite the significant increase in bilateral investment treaties, the positive impact of those treaties on actual investment flows is not unambiguous. This is the case for
both North-North and North-South investment treaties.
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Empirically, such treaties act more as complements than as substitutes for good institutional quality and protection of property rights, the rationale often cited by developing countries for ratifying BITs. Thus, investors are attracted more by abetter investment climate in host countries rather than BITs per se; see chapter Moreover, given the strong synergies between cross-border trade and foreign investment activities in the
global business environment, as discussed in chapter 6, the combination of appropriate trade rules, liberalized market access, and investor protections can have positive effects on FDI
flows. Several studies have found that
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attracted FDI after controlling for other factors that influence investors’
location choices. To this degree, RTAs can have a strong positive impact on
FDI inflows.
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Also, creation of an RTA will not have much effect on investment inflows from outside the region if restrictions on market access are severe and remain unchanged. Thus, open regionalism remains the key to successful attraction of FDI flows.
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