§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether any further negotiation is going on within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or elsewhere on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which was agreed last year; and, if so, where, and who are the participants. [HL2221]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Simon of Highbury)Negotiations in the OECD on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) ceased last year without being concluded. There are no negotiations on the MAI in the OECD or elsewhere.
Discussions and analysis, but not negotiations, continue in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Working Group on Trade and Investment and in parallel in the UNCTAD Expert Meetings on International Investment Agreements. It remains the aim of the UK and the EC to include a multilateral framework for investment in the new round of trade negotiations in the WTO but this will be a new framework based on new objectives established by consensus.