Measures to enhance and guarantee Investment in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Investment Initiative (www.2IM.coop) is a project led by Caisse des Dépôts (France), Caisse de Dépôt de Gestion (Morocco) and the Institut de prospective économique du monde méditerranéen since March, 2009. By bringing together thirty public and private, investors from European countries, South and East Mediterranean countries, Gulf States, but also development multilateral
institutions, the Initiative had as objectives to establish a shared diagnosis on opportunities and obstacles to investment in the Mediterranean region, to identify financial and legal tools to enhance the pace of investment and to formulate concrete proposals so as to encourage business opportunities.
The proposals formulated within the framework of the Initiative, contained in this report, fit into a dual vision. In the long term, the aim is to establish a comprehensive vision whilst in the short term is to propose operational solutions.
The long term vision consists in setting up a global financial architecture based upon a development financial institution to direct investment into projects that will build economic structure in the SEMCs over the long-term, rather than into speculative sectors. The time is now ripe to gradually establish a flexible and ambitious financial architecture specific to the region and akin to the Bretton Woods institutions: a Bank, a monetary fund, a guarantee agency, etc. In the short term, the aim is to remedy the shortcomings in the legal regimes governing investment security in the region and to set up instruments and tools for financing infrastructure and SMEs.
If it is to attract investors, the Mediterranean region needs to enhance its business climate and improve investor perceptions of the region. It also needs to endow itself with financial tools that will allow it to overcome the difficulties in financing infrastructure and SMEs.
Time has come to establish a real euro-Mediterranean partnership to accompany the historical moments the Mediterranean region witnesses and favors its emergence as a complementary and competitive region where solidarity is the rule in the context of globalization. Measures proposed within the Initiative do certainly contribute to it.