Background Paper #1
“Attracting Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) into the Greater Toronto Area.”

The background paper focuses on the issue of Canada’s and the GTA’s declining share of global/North American bound FDI and the implications for the Regions’ future economic prosperity. Canada’s and the GTA’s ability to attract more foreign direction investment is contingent on a number of influencing factors and incentives that are identified in the background paper. These factors are important to ensure that we don’t lose ground in the global marketplace for investment.

It also provides a synopsis on the benefits of FDI, key trends and the implications of these trends to the GTA. In focus group session discussions, participants addressed a number of key questions which are detailed in the background paper, for example, what lessons can be learned from other jurisdictions like China, India, Ireland and Russia? And, is Canada doing enough to promote the GTA as a destination for foreign direct investment?

Background Paper #1

“Supporting companies located in the GTA to

trade internationally and invest abroad.”

Background Paper #2 deals with the issue statement that Investments by Canadian companies abroad contribute to our overall economic well-being and should be actively supported. It provides a synopsis on the benefits of Outbound-FDI, looking at key trends and the increasing current investments abroad, most notably the UK, other North America (including the Caribbean), Asia and Central and South America.

Most jurisdictions now recognize the benefits of gaining access to overseas markets, resources and opportunities and actively promote O-FDI by participating as co-investors and by providing information and technical assistance, risk assurance or guarantees, and loans to multinationals A number of key questions are posed on what all this means for the GTA and what can / should the GTMA do to support and / or influence increased O-FDI?

Background Paper #3
“Positioning and promoting the GTA is a

global business context.”

Positioning and promoting the GTA is a global business context and requires a coordinated effort by the Canadian government, Ontario government and each of its constituent municipalities. This is the focus of the background paper #3 and it addresses a number of key issues identified by Deloitte’s Global Expansion Optimization (GEO) and Location Strategy Group as to why companies determine to locate their investments in a specific location.

GEO notes that many, if not most areas, however, have only one or two of the essential economic growth inputs, and are thus somewhat limited in the types of companies and functions they can reasonably expect to attract and grow. The Paper examines the GTA’s FDI Confidence Index and what this means for GTA’s ability in attracting new FDI. If the GTA is to increase its ranking on the FDI Confidence Index and investment attractiveness, we need to look to examine some key questions and look at lessons learned in how best to promote the GTA in a global business context.