"Why education is paramount in wooing foreign investment"

The UK's Independent analyses the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development World Investment Report (released 09.22.04) and makes a call for improving basic education in the developing world (notably Africa) to encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing the trade of services rather than goods.

The argument is that the globalized world is becoming more focused on shipping services and ideas rather than goods, and a services infrastructure is more essential to developing a strong economy, as well as more inexpensive to develop. The key to developing this is basic education, which brings in FDI, which then brings in the skills and training necessary to develop a service economy.