ABSTRACT
It is a widely held view that a positive relationship exists between the arrival of foreign direct investment (FDI) and development, and that attracting foreign capital is essential to developing countries in order to finance their growth and to improve their access to technologies. This consensus view is expressed, for instance, by the Partnership for Growth and Development adopted in 1996 at the Ninth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2 which states that
foreign direct investment can play a key role in the economic growth and development process…FDI is now considered to be an instrument through which economies are being integrated at the level of production into the globalizing world economy by bringing a package of assets, including capital, technology, managerial capacities and skills, and access to foreign markets. It also stimulates technological capacity-building for production, innovation and entrepreneurship within the larger domestic economy through catalysing backward and forward linkages
