Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

At a time when the world should be deepening cooperation and expanding opportunity we are seeing the opposite.

The World Investment Report 2025 was prepared by a team at UNCTAD led by Nan Li Collins.

Investment is more than just capital flows and project pipelines.

The terms country and economy as used in this report also refer as appropriate to territories or areas.

The digital economy is a significant and rapidly expanding part of the global economy. However the benefits of the digital economy are unevenly spread; there is a large digital divide. It is caused by infrastructure gaps skills gaps and services gaps. Bridging these gaps requires significant investment and private sector development. Promoting international investment by digital MNEs can support digital development. UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2017 first looked at the implications of the digital economy for international investment and investment policy. Since that report the relevance of digital-economy foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased significantly. Digital technologies have continued to advance. Investment policies connected to digitalization have also moved on. And importantly the United Nations adopted a new Digital Compact in 2024 with the objective to help developing countries bridge the digital divide. World Investment Report 2025 aims to explore the latest trends of international investment in digital economy analyze the drivers and determinants assess their impact on sustainable development as well as analyze how investment policy can support digital economy and provide relevant policy recommendations.

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are an ever-popular policy tool for the promotion of investment employment generation and the stimulation of innovation. Current estimates suggest that there are around 240 SEZs in Africa alone with the total number worldwide passing 5000. While traditionally SEZ policies have focused on the attraction of foreign large-scale industrial investors there has been an increasing interest on how to leverage SEZ policies to support local firms in particular micro small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMES) and foster local entrepreneurship. The importance of MSMEs and entrepreneurship for economic and social outcomes has been extensively documented. In most economies MSMEs represent the vast majority of firms in particular in the developing world. They contribute to the lion share of formal and informal employment and typically grow faster than large established companies. The entry of new firms has been shown to promote productivity and value added. However MSMEs also encounter particular challenges. Among other they face higher hurdles to access finance struggle more with bureaucratic processes and often have lower managerial and technological capabilities. These difficulties make it even more challenging for them to realize market opportunities and their growth potential.

The UNCTAD-led eTrade for all initiative launched at the fourteenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIV) in July 2016 is a practical example of how to harness the digital economy in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The eTrade Readiness Assessment of Zimbabwe comes at a critical juncture of the country’s national development trajectory.