Thank you, Director-General and the Co-Coordinators, Ambassadors Boza and Park.

The European Union welcomes the conclusion of the negotiations on the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement. This is a clear sign that the WTO Members can deliver development results. The agreement responds to concrete needs faced by economic operators on the ground and, at the same time, help developing countries attract more investment to finance their development needs.

The European Union has been strongly committed to the objective of achieving a meaningful and high-quality agreement that will make a real difference in facilitating investment and contribute to sustainable development.

Let me thank the Co-Coordinators and the team for the tremendous work carried out over the last year, and let me congratulate the negotiators of all delegations, who have shown a constructive spirit throughout these negotiations, which, let’s not forget, started in an entirely virtual mode during the pandemic.

Director-General, back in December last year at a similar meeting, you encouraged us to keep working towards the finalised text of the agreement. As you can see today, we listened to you carefully and have followed your guidance. As you also remarked back in December 2022, Director-General, that attracting more sustainable FDI flows is particularly important given the need to increase investment to drive growth, create jobs, enhance living standards, and reduce poverty. We fully share this perspective and therefore we are glad to hear that we can count on your engagement in promoting this development-oriented agreement further among the WTO membership.

It is reassuring that recent studies show a significant positive impact of the agreement, if implemented properly. The EU welcomes the work already carried out on the needs assessment and encourages everyone to intensify that work. The European Union stands ready to frontload the preparation for implementation with interested developing country partners, so that this agreement can bear fruit immediately upon its entry into force.

Bearing in mind that those negotiations have “development” as their main objective, we welcome the large participation of developing and least-developed countries. The success that we reached today should serve as an encouragement for more WTO Members to eventually join the agreement, which is open to everyone. 

We support the work plan that the Co-Coordinators have put forward for the 2^nd semester of this year. The four parallel tracks will require that all participants remain committed, and we are ready to continue playing our part, remaining actively engaged in this new phase of work.

As regards the “legal incorporation” of the agreement into the WTO architecture, we consider it crucial to rapidly reach convergence, among ourselves, on the most realistic way to ensure that the agreement will become part of the WTO rulebook. This track of work will have implications on the rest of our remaining work, as well as on the ultimate success of the agreement. Only once the agreement will be integrated into the WTO it will deliver pro-development results, by providing the necessary impetus to implement it and to leverage the resources that will be needed to support its implementation.

We are more than ever convinced that this agreement can play a positive role in facilitating and increasing the flows of Foreign Direct Investment, as a crucial source of financing for developing and developed countries alike. We should not miss the opportunity, now that the agreement is concluded and needs to materialise soon.

Thank you.