Investment Promotion Centre

The Investment Promotion Centre is established within the Energy Charter Secretariat to assist countries improving their investment promotion and facilitation activities in the energy sector. Governments can approach the Investment Promotion Centre to take part in the Energy Investment Risk Assessment (EIRA) or to gain assistance in implementing the non-binding guidelines of the Investment Facilitation Toolbox.

The Investment Promotion Centre assists in knowledge exchange and sharing best practices on energy investments. It aims at increasing the overall investment climate of States and provides a platform for building long-term relationships between host countries and investors.   

Governments can approach the Investment Promotion Centre

1. to engage in policy discussions with the energy industry on how to stimulate new business and investment opportunities. The Investment Promotion Centre constitutes a multilateral platform for facilitating dialogue and matching industry organisations or individual investors and governments;
2. to take part in the flagship publication of the Energy Charter Secretariat, the Energy Investment Risk Assessment (EIRA). EIRA evaluates specific risks affecting energy investment that can be mitigated through adjustments to policy, legal and regulatory frameworks. It aims to identify policy gaps, provide learning opportunities, and stimulate reforms which make the investment climate of countries more robust and reduce the risk of investor-State disputes;
3. to gain assistance in implementing the non-binding guidelines of the Investment Facilitation Toolbox. The Investment Facilitation Toolbox serves as an instrument to improve countries’ administrative and institutional capability to ensure that investors have favourable investment conditions. The Toolbox contains a checklist of policy options for removing non-discriminatory and de facto barriers to the establishment (entry) of energy investments. Typical barriers relate to excessive bureaucracy, burdensome investment approval procedures, low transparency, unpredictability, complex institutional governance and inefficient judiciary.

The Investment Promotion Centre can be contacted by email to investment@encharter.org.