Vancouver, along with 10 other major Canadian cities, should have a seat at the table in shaping national policies and strategies to attract inward foreign direct investment (FDI), according to a Conference Board of Canada report released today.
Halifax, Québec City, Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver have joined forces to form the newly incorporated Consider Canada City Alliance Inc.
The alliance is a united group of large Canadian cities that make up more than 50% of Canada's population and economic activity. Collectively these cities have a greater share of national inward FDI stock than their share of national GDP.
Alan Arcand, principal economist at the conference board, said, "The members of the alliance are punching above their economic weight in terms of attracting FDI.
"Given their importance in attracting foreign investment, cities have a role to play, along with their national and provincial counterparts, when policies to attract FDI are being developed."
The Role of Canada's Major Cities in Attracting Foreign Direct Investment focuses on the importance of developing an FDI attraction strategy involving city-level economic development efforts, along with provincial and national investment promotion activities.
Although most analysis of FDI is conducted at the national level, the lion's share of global investment activity flows through the world's cities, and Canada is no exception.
The report says a proactive and co-ordinated effort aimed at attracting FDI could lead to significant benefits, not only for the cities themselves, but also for the country as a whole.
At the regional level, several factors affect the attractiveness of a city for FDI, including a highly educated workforce, a high level of spending on R&D, penetration of new technologies, high-quality infrastructure and immigration.
The conference board's analysis indicated that for at least four of these regional policy factors – education, innovation, technology penetration and immigration – the members of the Consider Canada City Alliance outperform the rest of Canada.
