WTO negotiations on plurilateral agreement on investment facilitation reach draft text

Since September 2020, a group of members of the World Trade Organization (OMC) is negotiating a new agreement on investment facilitation disciplines, after almost three years of preparatory work. The negotiations for this Investment Facilitation Agreement for Development (IDF Agreement) have since progressed at a rapid pace. On December 16, 2022, the co-coordinators of the process, South Korea and Chile, circulated a new negotiating text to WTO members, the draft FID agreement. In the words of the co-coordinators, the draft FID agreement represents “an important step towards the conclusion of a WTO Agreement on the facilitation of investment for development”. The co-coordinators have announced that they hope to be able to finalize the legal text of the agreement no later than mid-2023. IISD recently published a report analyzing the text of the draft FID agreement and an article highlighting the main changes made to the previous text of 2022 as well as the issues on which members have yet to agree.