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No description available.

Inward investment is vital to the economic life of both the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China. By injecting capital from overseas, it generates exports, creates jobs, and brings advanced technology and new management styles. Legal regulations and government policies in this regard are always geared to reflect a balance between encouraging foreign business activities and maintaining certain degrees of control upon them. Based on expertise and experience that history shows, the United Kingdom offers an environment under which foreign investors can benefit from a rather complete legal framework. China today is also an attractive place for overseas capital, as its virtually limitless market is now becoming increasingly open to the world. This thesis is designed to examine the structure and performance of respective legal regulations concerning inward investment in the United Kingdom and China. With a view of gaining enlightenment from each other's experience, the thesis identifies and compares the following aspects which are of close relevance to inward investment issues, including basic structure of investment market, adoption of investment vehicles, roles of financial markets, real estate investment, taxation of investment behaviour, and settlement of disputes by arbitration. It is proposed that the analysis, materials and conclusions of this research may orientate foreign investors to get a deeper understanding about the UK investment market, and equally enable them to target their Chinese business in a more effective way.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become the most important source of development finance. Foreign direct investment is said to be taking place when a foreign corporation buys at least a 10 percent shareholding in a domestic firm or undertakes a greenfield investment in a foreign country. Recognising that FDI can contribute to economic development, all governments want to attract it. The world market for FDI is highly competitive, and developing countries, in particular, seek such investments to accelerate their development efforts. Both developing and developed countries are competing for global FDI flows. The result is that FDI flows are concentrated in few developed countries. It becomes critical for economic development to developing countries to attract more FDI flows into their economies. FDI flows are basically the result of investment decisions taken by trans-national corporations in response to certain pull factors. Whether a TNC will undertake FDI in a foreign country or not depends on the existence of determinants that influence such a decision. The increase in global FDI flows is a result of firms decid ing to invest in foreign markets rather than to export to those markets. What makes FDI attractive is that, unlike portfolio investment, it is almost of permanent nature. FDI is also more desirable than loans and official development assistance (ODA) in that it does not create debt. For this and other reasons, countries are seeking to attract FDI flows. Various economic development theories have been advanced to explain the reasons firms undertake FDI rather than export to those foreign markets. These theories include theories that focus on internal organisation or the intending firm. These theories assume the imperfect market condition. Foreign firms will undertake FDI if they have superior oligopolistic advantages over the local firms. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) like other regions and countries is seeking to attract foreign direct investment. The present analysis of the performance of this region show that its share of global FDI flows is very small. The region is facing big challenges as a result of weaknesses in its individual member countries. South Africa is the best performing member in terms of attracting FDI flows and undertaking FDI in other regional countries. FDI inflows into the SADC region are predominantly goin g into resources. This evident when case of Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo is analysed. It can be said that the FDI inflow into the region is predominantly resourceseeking. It can, however, also be said that some FDI is driven by the market-seeking motive. This is evident in the case of FDI in the food and beverages sector. It is important that the countries in the SADC region work hard to address those determinants that are critical to attracting more FDI. It is evident that some countries can improve their international image if they can address negative factors such as conflicts, crime and government apathy to disregard of the rule of law. Policies and strategies that are aimed at improving the image of the region need to be coordinated among member countries, if the region is to increase its share of global FDI. / Prof. A.E. Loots

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This study investigated whether known economic and international business theories available in the literature are meaningful enough to explain the nature, existence and role of multinational companies (MNCs) in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. Two sets of questionnaires were distributed in major cities of Saudi Arabia - one set for 100 multinational managers and another for 280 multinational customers. 234 questionnaires were collected - 45 from multinational managers and 189 from customers. This represents a total response rate of 62 percent, which is adequate for this study. The empirical results, supported with comprehensive secondary data, confirmed virtually all of the research hypotheses. The study found that joint ventures are the dominant form of multinational business in Saudi Arabia, both in manufacturing and service industries. The core roles of MNCs in the Saudi-foreign ventures are evident in the cross-border value-adding activities of marketing, trading, manufacturing, consulting, contracting, project management, insurance, hotel operation and banking. Likewise, MNCs provide licensing, franchising, financing services and various auxiliary roles in the Kingdom. Therefore, the multinationality of a firm or a group of firms operating across national boundaries is not necessarily synonymous with international production - the main subject of contemporary multinational theories. The respondents generally perceived the competitiveness of MNCs operating in Saudi Arabia as a function of a number of economic, management, marketing, technological and other variables. They also perceived the contributions of MNCs to the Kingdom's socio-economic developments as significant and positive. The study also found that understanding Islamic values and ethics is important for MNCs. In this regard, the researcher looked at some objective indicators of business success and related them to selected measures of MNCs' local cultural awareness and responsiveness. The results indicate that the business success of multinationals operating in Saudi Arabia is positively related to their local cultural awareness and responsiveness. Along this line, this study covers some vital elements of Islamic culture, which will help MNCs understand further the cultural needs, values and sensitivities of the Saudi people and Muslims in general.

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

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No description available.

M.Comm. / For twenty years Uganda suffered the disastrous consequences of a system of rule in which there were no limits to the exercise of power. During this period the country went through no less than seven different regimes, all of which ignored the rule of law and left people without a sense of personal security or power. Many Ugandans were forced into exile and those staying on withdrew from politics, leaving politicians to conduct their business without any accountability. The National Resistance Movement (NRM) Government, led by President Y oweri Museveni, came to power in early 1986. This brought an end to the political instability and economic decline, which had plagued the country hitherto. Under his leadership, the nation embarked on an ambitious economic recovery program, supported by the IMF, the World Bank, and other donors. The key elements of this successful program have been the restoration of fiscal and monetary discipline; the improvement of the incentive structure and investment climate for exports and other production activities; the rehabilitation of the country's social, economic and institutional infrastructure; and the promotion of increased savings and investment. The economic reforms implemented by the present government in Uganda since 1986, coupled with political stability, have contributed to economic growth rates averaging 6% per annum in the last decade. This has made Uganda one of the fastest growing countries in Africa. Inflation is under control and has been maintained below 10% per annum for the last four years. Most economic activities are fully liberalized and open to foreign investment. There are no restrictions to 100% foreign ownership of investments and no barriers to remittance of dividends. Uganda's shilling is fully convertible and has remained stable over the last years. The foreign exchange market is now wholly liberalized following a move by government, effective July 1997 to liberalize capital account transactions. Uganda is now one of about only five countries in the whole of Africa that have no restrictions on capital amount transfers. Within Africa and the emerging markets, Uganda enjoys a high status with donors and lenders. For the future, it is important to ensure that economic policy does not ignore social expenditure or the poverty dimension. In addition, President Museveni himself has repeatedly stressed the importance of attracting more private investment to Uganda in order to replace the foreign aid which can only be regarded as temporary. Other sectors needing attention are industrialization and privatization. As a landlocked country, Uganda needs to look to markets among its immediate neighbours. The new strategy should further include development of more linkages between agriculture and industry. It also needs to respond to people's basic needs and small-scale industries must be developed further. Only thus can industrialization contribute to economic welfare and sustainable development in Uganda. Privatization also needs to be reconsidered. It has contributed to the country's record rate of economic growth of 7-8 per cent, but so far it has not increased employment opportunities at all significantly. Nor has it enlarged the number of Ugandan entrepreneurs. Poverty, too, has not been reduced so far by privatization. There remams substantial room for development in most sectors of the Ugandan economy, creating opportunities for further and increased foreign investment. These sectors include food processmg and packing, construction equipment and electrical power systems, telecommunications equipment and services, travel and tourism services, light manufacturing, household consumer goods, footwear, furniture and textile fabrics, mining, mining industry equipment, non-ferrous metals, marine fisheries products and agriculture, including traditional crops such as coffee, cotton, tea and tobacco, fruit and vegetable processing, edible oil production, staple food crops processing, flowers and livestock. The vehicles for the facilitation of foreign investment are in place, the investment climate is open and friendly towards foreign investors, with an established investment code and incentive regime, offering generous capital recovery terms, particularly for investors whose projects entail significant investment in plant and machinery and whose investments are medium to long term. Uganda offers a predictable environment having achieved macro-economic stability at a time when clouds of uncertainty rock many regions in the world.