The World Bank group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) has established a facility on the Internet which connects visitors to over 7,000 documents related to investment conditions worldwide. MIGA's IPAnet located at <http://www.ipanet.net>, gives access to a wealth of investment information on a global scale, from particular investment opportunities and country-specific business conditions; to procurement opportunities, calendars of investment-related events, and project and economic data from the World Bank and other leading organizations in international investment. IPAnet also provides links to relevant web pages organized geographically and sectorally.

Most of IPAnet's information resources are provided free of charge, although registration is required. Paid memberships are available to organizations which want to market their services to the international investment community. Membership of IPAnet grants the use of billboards on the system introducing members' organizations and services together with banner advertisements with direct links to members' homepages. Membership also provides an on-line, investment-related news service, plus a range of other benefits. "We consider IPAnet to be one of the most valuable and unique services we offer," said Phil Karp, Program Manager for MIGA's Investment Promotion Agency Services. "It's a successful way of harnessing information resources and the functionality of the Internet for the purpose of promoting investment in emerging markets." Mr. Karp says the model for IPAnet is the information clearing house, and notes a new contributor to the system's storehouse of information is "Korea Trade & Investment's" publisher the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) through its web site, Digital KOTRA.

By way of example regarding the operation of the system, Mr. Karp explained someone wanting to research factor costs in Korea could access Digital KOTRA, select the section dealing with foreign investment, and find up to 70 pages of related information. "We structured the database in a way which mirrors the way companies organize their information when they look for investment opportunities," he said. Searches for a particular topic "will point the way to any number of web sites plus the source's contact information." Some 70 Korean users are registered with IPAnet, all of whose particulars including contact information are integrated into the IPAnet directory. "If an organization has a homepage in addition to the contact, its possible to be hyperlinked directly to it," said Mr. Karp. IPAnet constitutes one of the technical services MIGA provides to compliment its political risk insurance function. "The inclusion of such services goes back to MIGA's establishment in the early 1980s when concern was expressed by countries which didn't attract a lot of investment and would not be noticed unless investors were coming to the table with a specific project to be guaranteed," said Mr. Karp. "Investors might well be aware on their own of a project in a country like China, but they might not be aware of opportunities in the Congo." He said through IPAnet MIGA is "helping get countries on the map, and allows the agency to serve those member countries where we aren't issuing guarantees."

While the major focus of IPAnet is inward investment into such countries, Mr. Karp noted that the facility also can be used by KOTRA to promote inward investment into Korea. "However, we are largely interested in working with Korean firms interested in investing in emerging markets," he said. Given international investment is increasingly viewed as a strategic arm of international trade and predicted in some quarters to exceed such trade, MIGA's IPAnet stands at the forefront of efforts to both broaden and deepen the global marketplace and bring development to every corner of the earth.

by Charles Duerden