China played key role in IFD agreement text negotiations: official

BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) -- China played a key role in successfully concluding negotiations on the text of the world's first multilateral investment agreement, known as the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD), a commerce ministry official said on Friday.

The successful conclusion was announced after a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting on the text negotiations.

As the world's first multilateral investment agreement, the IFD agreement aims to improve the transparency and predictability of investment measures, speed up and streamline investment-related administrative procedures, and enhance sustainable investment.

The IFD agreement is the first negotiation topic set up and actively led by China in the WTO, with more than 110 WTO members signing and participating in the negotiation of the IFD. The topic entered into text negotiations in September 2020.

China provided pragmatic solutions for disputed issues during the negotiations, and made key contributions to their successful conclusion, receiving high recognition from the parties involved, the official said.

Negotiations on multilateral investment agreements have long been an obstacle in making global trade and investment rules, and former attempts made by the WTO and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have all failed, the official said.

Global foreign direct investment faced huge downward pressure in 2022 and fell by 12 percent to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, according to the World Investment Report 2023 released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.