scholarly journals Foreign Direct Investment Dynamics in South Africa: Reforms, Trends and Challenges

Author(s):  
Mercy T. Musakwa ◽  
Nicholas M. Odhiambo

Abstract This paper gives an overview of foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Africa from 1980 to 2017. It highlights trends in FDI inflows, reforms that have been implemented to date, and challenges that need to be addressed in order to increase the FDI inflows into the country. Government reforms on FDI have been two pronged. Firstly, there are policies that are aimed at creating a strong competitive industry and a strong industrial base for investment. Among such policies are trade liberalisation policies, multilateral and regional integration policies, supportive industrial policies, and bilateral trade agreements. Secondly, there are policies that directly target the FDI investment. These policies include, amongst others, investment incentives, regulatory reforms, exchange control relaxation, and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) reforms. The findings from this study show that FDI inflows have increased significantly from 1990 although they still remain depressed.

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhilesh Chandra Prabhakar ◽  
Muhammad Azam ◽  
B. Bakhtyar ◽  
Yusnidah Ibrahim

<p class="zhengwen"><span lang="EN-GB">The present study begins by surveying broadly supports the assertion that regional integration in the case of the BRICS is not adequately paid attention except with very few original or significant contributions. This research examines the existing pattern in the areas of trade and investment with a view to locate in the development context. It was also essential to make a theoretical investigation on literature of trade along with the empirical one. The survey broadly supports the frequent, through usually undocumented, assertion that BRICS was an area had tended to neglect and to which they had made few if any original or significant contributions. Alongside, this study panel data on BRICSs, where the results confirm that foreign direct investment (FDI), trade and economic growth indicate the presence of long-run sustainable equilibrium relationship between them. It is thus important that policymakers to remove obstacles to FDI inflows and improve the respective absorptive capacity in order to reap maximize positive growth effects. This study also discussed that how China performed well through attracting FDI inflows and maintained trade balance. </span></p>


2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (163) ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Slavica Penev ◽  
Matija Rojec

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has played an important role in the restructuring of economies of the new member countries of the European Union. FDI levels in South East Europe (SEE) are much lower than in the CEE countries in transition, what reduces the potential restructuring impact of FDI in SEE. The issue here is, how to strengthen FDI inflows in SEE. Along these lines, the aim of the paper is to analyze the countries of SEE as a location for FDI. In the first section we present the economic situation and trends in SEE countries, which are of specific relevance for investors from abroad. Second section deals with FDI trends and situation in SEE countries while the third section analyses individual elements of investment climate in SEE countries. In section four we argue that EU and regional integration processes in SEE are important for making the region a more attractive location for FDI.


Author(s):  
Wellington Garikai Bonga

The debate of the link between xenophobia and importance of foreign direct investment is of interest. A phrase says it all, “One cannot want foreign money and hate foreign businesses at the same time.” Does South Africa, as a country, love foreign investment, and by extension, foreign investors? A ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer will do for this question. Foreign direct investments are the most desirable form of capital inflows to emerging and developing countries. Many benefits are linked to accrue to a nation because of FDI inflows. FDI is climatic sensitive, and usually goes where it is wanted most and where conducive environment prevails. The South African nation is dominated by unending violence that also targets foreigners including their businesses. Effective policies to curb xenophobia seems to be lacking. There exist xenophobia denialism among the political leaders, making it more difficult to halt the problem. Letting the nation continue turning into a hostile destination for foreigners may pose a great investment challenge in the longer term. The path that South Africa is walking today, of protecting and failing to address issues of xenophobia, have a long term impact to investment in the country. Conflicts and violence attacks, hence xenophobia, continue to affect FDI flows several years into the future. The trend of net FDI has already shown a downward trend that may be attributed to issues of unrest persistent in the economy. The study strongly indicate that repetitive xenophobic attacks significantly impact future FDI inflows negatively. Immediate action is required to minimize the damage caused by xenophobia in the country. Investment climate restoration is required to ensure favorable economic growth path for the country. KEYWORDS: Economic Growth, Foreigners, Foreign Direct Investment, Instability, Investment, Investment Climate, Socio-economic Development, Violence, Xenophobia, South Africa


Author(s):  
Orshanska Marіana

The purpose of the article is to determine the nature, characteristics and keyproblems of the main types of economic and legal instruments for the realizationof foreign direct investment (FDI). the methodological basis of the study is asystematic approach to the processing and compilation of statistics and indicators,as well as methods for their comparison, analysis and synthesis and a method offorecasting decisions on the use of investment potential to increase the attractivenessand volume of FDI attraction. The scientific novelty of the research lies in theanalysis of greenfield and brownfield strategies as the main forms of FDIimplementation, the disclosure of the content and interpretation of data on thereal state of FDI attraction, the search for opportunities to improve the investmentclimate and effective mechanisms for attracting foreign investors. conclusions. Itis confirmed that the investment attractiveness and rating of the country in theinternational market are the main factors for attracting investors. Inaccessibleinfrastructure, inefficient judicial system, high level of corruption and imperfectlegislation are the main obstacles that need to be overcome in order to attractforeign investors’ funds, providing a full package of assistance and support ateach stage of the implementation of investment projects. Greenfield and brownfield(M&A) are the most effective forms of FDI in order to achieve high growth ratesof the domestic economy, improve the level of population well-being andinternationally enter Ukraine. An analysis of the statistics on the effectiveness ofinnovative enterprise development projects, the characteristics of economic andlegal instruments indicate the gradual improvement of the investment climate andthe promotion of FDI inflows into the region’s economy through the implementationof greenfield and brownfield strategies. Examples of effective implementation ofthese strategies in the creation of new enterprises, companies of foreignrepresentation, which are expanding their capacity and entering new domesticmarkets are given. Examples of the brownfield strategy have been analyzed torestart existing and high-quality structural and organizational changes in inefficiententerprises, which have given impetus to improving the economic environment,investment attractiveness of the economy of the region and the country as a whole.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Dikshita Kakoti

Since 1990, globalization of Indian economy led to a speedy growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and simultaneously outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) also shows an increasing trend. However, India’s OFDI has attracted a little attention from the researchers and they have considered the OFDI in terms of commitments or approved equities. The motivation of this article is to investigate the India’s macro factors influencing actual OFDI flows from India by empirically recognizing four factors, namely gross domestic product, inward FDI, real effective exchange rate, and real interest rate over the period 1980–2016. The study has used Augmented Dicky-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) Unit root tests for checking the stationarity of the variable of the model. Later on, autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model and error correction mechanism is used for testing the long-run as well as short-run dynamics of the model. The result shows that all the selected variables have positive and significant influence on India’s outward investment flows.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Malsha Mayoshi Rathnayaka Mudiyanselage ◽  
Gheorghe Epuran ◽  
Bianca Tescașiu

In this increasingly globalized era, foreign direct investments are considered to be one of the most important sources of external financing for all countries. This paper investigates the causal relationship between trade openness and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in Romania during the period 1997–2019. Throughout this study, Trade Openness is the main independent variable, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Real Effective Exchange Rate (EXR), Inflation (INF), and Education (EDU) act as control variables for investigating the relationships between trade openness (TOP) and FDI inflow in Romania. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds test procedure was adopted to achieve the above-mentioned objective. Trade openness has negative and statistically significant long-run and short-run relationships with FDI inflows in Romania throughout the period. Trade openness negatively affects the FDI inflow, which suggest that the higher the level of openness is, the less likely it is that FDI will be attracted in the long run. The result of the Granger causality test indicated that Romania has a unidirectional relationship between trade openness and FDI. It also showed that the direction of causality ran from FDI to trade openness.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleg Mariev ◽  
Igor Drapkin ◽  
Kristina Chukavina

Abstract The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it is to answer the question of whether Russia is successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). Second, it is to identify partner countries that “overinvest” and “underinvest” in the Russian economy. We do this by calculating potential FDI inflows to Russia and comparing them with actual values. This research is associated with the empirical estimation of factors explaining FDI flows between countries. The methodological foundation used for the research is the gravity model of foreign direct investment. In discussing the pros and cons of different econometric methods of the estimation gravity equation, we conclude that the Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood method with instrumental variables (IV PPML) is one of the best options in our case. Using a database covering about 70% of FDI flows for the period of 2001-2011, we discover the following factors that explain the variance of bilateral FDI flows in the world economy: GDP value of investing country, GDP value of recipient country, distance between countries, remoteness of investor country, remoteness of recipient country, level of institutions development in host country, wage level in host country, membership of two countries in a regional economic union, common official language, common border and colonial relationships between countries in the past. The potential values of FDI inflows are calculated using coefficients of regressors from the econometric model. We discover that the Russian economy performs very well in attracting FDI: the actual FDI inflows exceed potential values by 1.72 times. Large developed countries (France, Germany, UK, Italy) overinvest in the Russian economy, while smaller and less developed countries (Czech Republic, Belarus, Denmark, Ukraine) underinvest in Russia. Countries of Southeast Asia (China, South Korea, Japan) also underinvest in the Russian economy.


Author(s):  
EKUNDAYO PETER MESAGAN ◽  
KAYODE ABIODUN AKINYEMI ◽  
ISMAILA AKANNI YUSUF

As economies integrate financially and both investment and output increase, the environment may be affected depending on the nature of international financial resources attracted into the country. Hence, this study examines the effect of financial integration, output growth, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on the environment in selected African countries involving Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Angola between 1980 and 2017. The study uses carbon emissions and particulate emissions (PM) to proxy pollution and analyze the data through the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) technique. Empirical results show that financial integration worsens pollution in Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and in Africa; output growth deteriorates pollution in South Africa, Algeria, Angola, and in Africa; while FDI fuels environmental degradation in Egypt and South Africa. We recommend that African countries should strive to establish specific targets for lowering emissions even though the Kyoto Protocol did not set specific emissions reduction targets for them.


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