A REVIEW OF THE CHINA-GHANA BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATY, 1989

Sino-Ghana business relationship has grown tremendously over the past two decades. The legal environment of this relationship will be analyzed critically and suggestions for improvement will be made in this article to further enhance this burgeoning relationship. In October 1989, Ghana and China signed an agreement concerning the encouragement and reciprocal protection of investment, known as the China-Ghana Bilateral Investment Treaty, which came into effect on November 22, 1991. There will be a review of this agreement which sought to provide an equitable treatment and enjoyment of protection in investments between the two countries based on the Most Favored Nation principle.

Do Bilateral Investment Treaties Attract Foreign Direct Investment to Developing Countries？ A Review of the Empirical Literature

States have signed over 3,000 bilateral investment treaties （BITs）. BITs stipulate the terms and conditions by which foreign investors from one country must be treated in another. A series of empirical studies have asked the question, do BITs increase foreign direct investment to less developed countries？ This paper reviews the literature. While the studies come to conflicting results, most studies suffer from the same methodological misstep--they fail to account for variation in treaties. The paper concludes that the most productive path forward for future research efforts includes using dyadic research designs that account for variation in BITs.

Implications of the Interaction of Trade and Tax Rules(Part One)

Trade,investment and tax treaties are concluded for different reasons and with different objectives.The international trade and tax systems are overseen by different global organizations.The overlaps and inconsistencies between these agreements could be exploited by investors to gain unintended advantages.Therefore,developing countries must ensure that there is greater cooperation and exchange of information in relation to trade,investment and tax policy.The exchange of information between tax administrations is important in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI),where the tax administration in each jurisdiction needs to know more about the cross-border transactions of multinationals operating in its territory.The most effective way for developing countries to improve the exchange of information is to sign multilateral agreements,in particular the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters.The customs and transfer pricing functions within a jurisdiction should collaborate and exchange information to ensure that the pricing of import transactions is consistent across different taxes.Both functions could carry out risk-based compliance audits that would involve comparison of transfer pricing and customs documentation.In the context of coordination between customs and direct tax functions,the comparison of customs and transfer pricing documentation can be established on a routine basis.Closer coordination of transfer pricing and customs would also help taxpayers reduce compliance costs in relation to cross-border transactions.In view of the compliance costs involved in putting together transfer pricing documentation,it would help taxpayers if much of the same documentation could also be used for the purposes of customs valuation.