As prepared for delivery
Ministers, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues,
Thank you for joining this roundtable. The breadth of representation around this table gives us a rare opportunity for candid exchange on how investment policy must respond to the profound transformations of our global economy.
Before inviting your interventions, allow me to frame our discussion with two observations. One on why the concentration of strategic investment concerns countries at every level of development. And one on what we can all do about it.
I will start with concentration.
This morning, I spoke of a shift in the logic of investment – from cost to strategy.
The World Investment Report 2026 shows how far that shift has gone. The top three investor economies accounted for 69% of investment in strategic sectors between 2020 and 2025. The top three recipient economies captured half. In other sectors, those shares are roughly a third and a quarter.
This matters because investment in these sectors brings more than finance. A semiconductor facility requires specialized talent. An AI data centre requires reliable and affordable energy. Clean-technology industries require efficient logistics, capable institutions and strong local suppliers. When strategic investment concentrates in a few markets, the technology, skills and productive capacity it carries concentrate as well. Countries that are not part of these value chains today will find it harder to enter them tomorrow.
This brings me to what we can do.
Governments are already responding to this shift vigorously. Last year, they adopted a record 229 investment policy measures, increasingly targeted at strategic sectors and domestic value creation. This activism is not new; countries have long used investment zones, promotion agencies and industrial incentives to attract capital. What is new is the scale: governments at every income level are now competing to secure the same strategic industries, and the policy tools they use – from subsidies to export controls – are reshaping the terms of competition in real time.
In this environment, the question for every country in this room is how to build a credible strategy. One that identifies where its economy can enter emerging value chains, invests in the foundations that make those entry points viable and shows investors that the opportunity is real.
Around this table sit the economies where those strategies are taking shape. A minerals-processing chain in the Congo. Clean-energy manufacturing in Egypt. Battery production in Thailand. AI infrastructure in the Gulf. A textile enterprise in Bangladesh that moves from assembly to design. Each entry point is different. Each requires a strategy built for that country’s strengths, not borrowed from elsewhere.
Over the next two hours, we will hear how you are building those strategies – how regional cooperation is helping some of you create the scale that strategic investment demands, how a new generation of investment agreements can better serve your development priorities and where the international system, including UN Trade and Development, can do more and do better.
Excellencies,
The future of investment will be shaped by where trust, capabilities and partnerships are built. Your perspectives, from every region, will inform the direction of our work and shape the outcomes of this Forum. I look forward to your interventions.