The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s largest free-trade agreement, brings together a diverse group of 15 economies, to mutually benefit from an expansion in regional trade and investment, through reduced trade barriers and tariffs and enhanced regulatory coherence. This partnership will undeniably reshape regional economic dynamics. To better understand the ability of the RCEP to reshape the economic dynamics in the region, it is essential to evaluate its impact on trade and foreign direct investment (FDI).

It is with great pleasure that we present the Book of Abstracts of the International Conference on International Trade and Investment (ICITI 2025), held on 25–26 September 2025 at the Voilà Hotel Bagatelle, Mauritius, under the theme “Trade and FDI Facilitation in the IORA Region.” 

The mounting interest in the environment has triggered scholars’ attention and effort to study the determinants of environmental degradation. Yet, a gap in the literature remains unexplored, environmental impacts of trade market diversification/concentration. This study is the first attempt to explore the effect of trade market diversification besides other variables such as economic growth, energy and foreign direct investment (FDI) on environment in Gulf Cooperation Council countries from 2000 to 2018.

The complex relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), political stability, and economic growth remains a critical area of study, particularly for developing economies like South Africa. This research investigates how FDI impacts economic growth in South Africa, with a special focus on the role political stability plays in moderating this effect. The study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the importance of political conditions for maximising the benefits of FDI.

Abstract

The current study investigates the impact of foreign direct investment on the growth of Namibia’s economy from 1990 to 2020 using the ARDL cointegration method. The results reveal that FDI, the interactive variable of FDI and trade openness, and other macroeconomic variables such as domestic investment, government consumption expenditure, human capital, a proxy for economic stability, and return on investment are responsible for Namibia’s economic growth.

The automotive industry is one of the South African industries that contribute to the manufacturing output and exports and plays important to the country’s economic performance. However, the export volume from this industry depends on various economic factors that include foreign direct investment, domestic investment and exchange rate volatility. The current study aims to determine empirically these three variables on the export volume in the South African automotive industry.

This paper investigates the impact of investment climate on FDI in Africa using a dataset that spans 2000 to 2018. It also hypothesised that the relationship between investment climate and FDI could vary by country classification as a landlocked, least developed (LDC), natural resource-abundant or has a developed financial market system (DFM). The system's GMM and the fixed-effect model with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors results show that investment climate is critical for FDI in Africa, resource-rich countries and those with DFM.