Background
All FDI is not the same. Different types of companies have different reasons for investing abroad. Moreover, the main types of FDI have changed dramatically over recent decades. This training seminar reviews these FDI trends and discusses why companies invest abroad and how they select an investment location. It also examines FDI from a country’s perspective. FDI can bring many benefits to a country. Most governments typically think of FDI in terms of the number of jobs created; however, FDI can have several other important impacts that are both direct and indirect.

This training seminar sets the stage for the Investment Promotion by providing an overview of the nature, cause, effects, and benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI). In the FDI arena, the primary actors are the transnational corporations (TNCs) that make abroad investments and the locations that serve as hosts for these investments.

The training program consists of 6 modules with main objectives to help participants coming from different Macedonian municipalities:

• To deepen the level of knowledge of FDI
• To wide the understanding of procedures for promotion of investment potential and do the activities on the ground, providing transparent data and procedures
• To assess the interest of the municipalities for improvement in this field, leading towards developing an active role for playing in attraction of FDI
• To develop baseline for local and national data base for investment potential
• To define models and modes for communication about FDI and ways how to improve the corporate reputation through a good CSR

The modules are:

• MODULE 1 - Introduction to FDI
• MODULE 2 - Creating An Investment Promotion Strategy
• MODULE 3 - Partnership
• MODULE 4 – Image Building
• MODULE 5 - Targeting
• MODULE 6 - Servicing Investors

Overview
Participants must also understand the other side of the FDI equation: the potential your location holds as a host to investment. They must understand how a country’s level of economic development and its national economic policies affect the size and types of FDI a location can attract. Because FDI is not a goal in itself, but only one way to further economic development, participants must have a clear understanding of what types of FDI are right for your country and of the benefits offered by FDI, how these benefits can be maximized, and the government policies that are most conducive to attracting FDI. This module provides a general foundation upon which effective investment promotion strategies can be built. It is not an exhaustive study of FDI, but rather an introduction to many of the issues central to their work.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will have gained a general understanding of:

• Why companies invest abroad
• Different types of FDI
• How FDI trends have changed over time
• Site selection processes and the factors sought by TNCs
• Economic effects associated with FDI
• Importance of an open and transparent economic environment

Increasingly competitive environment for investment promotion

Overview
This module explains how to develop an investment promotion strategy. It shows how to conduct an evaluation of your location's strengths and weaknesses and how to identify the specific industry sectors that are compatible with these attributes. It also discusses the importance of evaluating and modifying your organization's mix of promotional activities, functions and responsibilities, partnerships, and budget to reflect industry and geographic targets that you identify. The outcome of an intermediary's promotion strategy development, therefore, will affect the implementation of all the other activities discussed in this Toolkit.

The detailed and comprehensive approach discussed here is simply one way to developing an investment promotion strategy. It is not necessarily the best for all investment promotion intermediaries (IPIs). Depending on your organization's size, capabilities, and experience, you may use alternate approaches or only some aspects of this approach.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will:

• Understand the importance of a clear investment promotion strategy;
• Appreciate the link between the national economic development plan and investment promotion;
• Know how to evaluate your location’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats;
• Understand how to target industries and geographic sources of investment that are most suited to your location’s attributes;

Recognize the effect that promotion strategy development has on other tasks undertaken in the organization.

Overview
To be successful in investment promotion requires effective cooperation between the investment promotion agency and other organizations in each location. During the development of an investment promotion strategy, other public and private sector agencies which could provide assistance in the development and delivery of image building, investment generation, and investor servicing should be considered for potential partnerships. Not all activities can benefit from such partnerships. The objective of this module is to help participants to determine which activities are best undertaken together with other agencies, and how the resulting relationships should be managed.

The module also helps define the types of partnerships that should be established, their duration, which groups might be involved, and how the partnerships should be measured and evaluated. Tailoring this information to particular location participants come from, will allow their organization to maximize the impact of available resources and ensure that the relevant parties are working together toward shared objectives.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will:

• Understand the purpose and elements of three general types of partnerships
• Be familiar with a range of potential partnerships for a given location
• Know important techniques for effectively managing partnerships

Understand the importance of periodic reviews and the monitoring and evaluation role within partnerships

Overview
This module focuses on the first promotional activities that you should undertake once that you have defined your investment promotion strategy Awareness- and image -building activities are the cornerstone of investment promotion. If investors have an undeservedly negative perception of your location or know little about your location and its advantages, your efforts to generate investment will be less effective. The task of image building begins with an assessment of how investors, either in general or in your targeted sectors, view your location.

This information will allow you to identify and subsequently address any deficiencies and also maintain positive perceptions. This module examines techniques for measurement, the means to translate results of that measurement into an action plan, and the correct mix of promotional tools for delivering key messages to your targeted audience in a cost effective manner.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will have gained a general understanding of:

• The three steps of an image-building campaign
• How to measure investor perceptions about a location and design a marketing message to make the best of those perceptions
• The different types of promotional tools that can be used for image building

How to alter the promotional "mix" to maximize cost-effectiveness and promotional impact

Overview
One of the most common images associated with investment promotion is that of an investment officer contacting a potential investor to discuss opportunities in his or her location. Before this contact is made and after it is completed the officer and the investment promotion agency will undertake a number of steps that collectively are called investment generation. In most cases, the agency or local authority will have conducted an image building campaign to inform the investors about its location before beginning the investment generation campaign.

This module discusses the transition from image building to investment generation and ways to target and generate investment opportunities. Beginning with the development of a lead tracking database, the module then describes how to use this database as a foundation for an investment generation campaign. Next, the discussion turns to planning and executing the campaign, explaining the most common tools at the agency’s disposal to generate interest in its location, and how to build a relationship with potential investors.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will:

• Know the difference between image building and investment generation
• Understand the use of key direct marketing techniques
• Know the importance of a marketing database and understand how to develop such a database
• Understand the investment generation project cycle
• Be able to effectively use the most common investment generation tools

Overview
A successful investment-generation campaign will result in investor interest in a location. Ideally, some of these investors will be sufficiently interested to visit the location so that they can see it for themselves. This is the point at which investor-servicing activities begin. An investment promotion agency has a central role in these activities; this module describes both the activities and the details of its role. It explains the pre-visit preparations necessary to anticipate a visiting investor’s needs and also how to plan and structure a visit program tailored to the specific requirements of the individual company. Participants will learn how to follow up and pull together a development package that will give specific location an edge over the competition. If the preparatory tasks have been performed well, the investor may decide to invest in your location. This investor’s decision, however, is not solely dependent on the agency’s performance – many other external factors will be considered before an investment decision is made. Expansions by existing investors are another important source of foreign direct investment (FDI), and the module briefly explains several ways to provide "aftercare" services to firms that establish operations. By mastering and integrating investor servicing into your agency, you will significantly increase the probability of converting investor visits into actual investments.

Objectives:
Upon completing this module, the participants will understand:

• The critical steps necessary to prepare for an investor site visit
• How to plan a visit program that matches the individual needs and interests of a specific company
• The type of supporting documentation that should be prepared for a site visit
• How to build an attractive development package

The importance of providing investor aftercare