World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) is a partner of KazanSummit2017

On May 18-20, the 9th International Economic Summit “Russia — Islamic World:  KazanSummit 2017” will take place in the capital of the Republic of the Republic of Tatarstan. According to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov was appointed the Chairman of the Group of strategic vision “Russia – Islamic world”. On the instructions of the Head of the region, Tatarstan Investment Development Agency is working on the preparation of the upcoming economic event. One of the partners of the upcoming Summit is World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), at the event the delegation will be headed by the CEO of WAIPA Bostjan Skalar. 

World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies

World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) is a non-governmental organization created in 1995 in Genevain order to establish contacts and and develop cooperation, exchange experience and vital information in the sphere of foreign direct investments attraction.

In the framework of the events of Annual Investment Meeting in Dubai in April 2017 WAIPA announced that now there are about 4000 Investment Promotion Agencies in the world, while there were announced about 14400 projects related to greenfield, that means the highest competition among the agencies: in total there are about 3,5 projects for each agency.

To date, 155 organizations from 104 countries, including 27 OIC countries comprising such countries leading in Islamic economy as Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, are the members of World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies. Several Investment Promotion Agencies from 10 countries leading in attracting investments for 2016 according to UNCTAD (USA, Great Britain, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil, France, Netherlands, Australia, India) are members of WAIPA: these are the Departments of International Trade of the British Government, Investment promotion agency (CIPA) of the Chinese Ministry of Trade, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade "Apex Brazil" from Brazil and French Investment Promotion Agency "Business France".

Investment Promotion Agencies are active participants in the development processes of economies of their countries. The basic requirement to the investors, which is even more important than the cost of the project, and the performance indicator of European agencies is the creation and maintenance of job places.

For example, according to preliminary data of UNCTAD, the Great Britain attracted about $179 billion of foreign direct investments in 2016. During the reporting period 2015-2016, the Department for International Trade of the United Kingdom (UKTI) together with partners supported 1731 projects of 2213 registered investment projects, i.e. 80% of all the projects of the United Kingdom, resulted in the creation of 82,6 thousand jobs. Thus, TRW company, the Nissan's supplier in Sunderland city, localized production for 130 new jobs, and Lear Corporation company increased the production by 100 more jobs.

For its members the association organizes forums, meetings and conferences, promotes effective networking, exchange of crucial experience in the sphere of investment attraction.

World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) is the main central directorate of a wide network of institutes which are actively involved in promotion of a country or region for attraction of foreign investment.

In recent years, WAIPA is opening up even more opportunities to convey to world's media the collective opinion of investment agencies, which is an obvious advantage. Protecting the interests of investment agencies to their national governments also demonstrates good results. In addition, WAIPA membership offers access to its contact base - an opportunity to reach out WAIPA members all over the world.

The greatest benefit of joining WAIPA is in collective know-how of its wide network of Investment Agencies, which share their experience and accumulated knowledge, successful practices and innovative technologies in investment attraction.

The Republic of Tatarstan is the first representative of Russia in the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies.

In September 2011, Tatarstan Investment Development Agency joined the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) becoming the first representative of the Russian Federation joining WAIPA. As early as February 2013, at the meeting of the WAIPA General Assembly in Geneva Tatarstan Investment Development Agency joined the Steering committee of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies and was appointed as WAIPA Eastern Europe Director. This position was previously held by the Public Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments.

Year after year, Tatarstan takes a very active part in WAIPA meetings. For example, on April 2, 2017, in the frameworks of Annual Investment Meeting in Dubai, the meeting of World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies was held. Russia was presented by the Republic of Tatarstan - the leading region in investment climate. The Head of Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Taliya Minullina took part in it as an expert and speaker.

Investing in the framework of sustainable development, new trends in economic, public-private partnership development, integration of the regional agencies in world investment community, as well as the factors which affect volume of direct investment and many other questions were discussed by the participants.

During the event, Taliya Minullina presented economic and investment potential of Tatarstan. In particular, the advantages of investment infrastructure of the republic as well as the successful experience of the region in investment activities were provided in details. "A recipe for success is proper definition of own requirements followed by research of those key foreign partners, who could be involved in joint work. The strategic question for the region is how accurate and complete, informative and insightful, and as a result effectively the needs of local economy will be met, in order to improve the quality of life  of the region's population".

Taliya Minullina also invited all the participants to take part in the 9th International Economic Summit “Russia — Islamic World: KazanSummit 2017». The CEO of WAIPA Bostjan Skalar accepted the invitation to become the participant of such a large-scale event with pleasure.

KazanSummit unites

One of the central discussions of the upcoming summit will be on the need for cooperation between countries. The world community is now facing with the question of further development and defining the main vector of the world economy. It is only in joined efforts success can be achieved. WAIPA, as a connecting association, has all the necessary tools to unite international forces to establish stable economy. Being a speaker at the plenary session of the Summit, Bostjan Skalar highlights the importance of cooperation: "The countries should definitely focus on what investments should be encouraged in the current complicated phase of world economic development. Investments should be aimed at achieving sustainable development objectives, and we should strive to promote investments securing the prosperity of local people and creation of decent jobs".

If you are interested in successful future, take part in the most important event of economic spring! The registration is open till May 14, 2017 at kazansummit.ru.