Foreign Ownership Restrictions and Liberalization Reforms

This book analyses a study of foreign ownership restrictions in ten countries over the period 1984?1994. This decade was chosen because it was a time of remarkable liberalization. The study discusses the rationales for originally imposing ownership restrictions, why and how these rationales changed, and why certain restrictions were still in place at the end of the period. The ten countries?Canada, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Spain and Venezuela?were chosen to provide a wide representation of forces that influence the types, extent, and evolution of foreign investment systems, as well as to illustrate a broad range of ownership restrictions and liberalization reforms. On the basis of this material, the book proposes alternative policies and programs for achieving the objectives of foreign ownership restrictions, and it offers recommendations for the reform process.