Erdekes anyag az egyre jelentosebb mereteket olto kulfoldi befektetesek
kornyezeti/szocialis hatasairol (mind kedvezo, mind kedvezotlen). Bar a
cikk cimeben a harmadik vilagba iranyulo tokebefektetesekre utal, a
szovegben magaban mar tobb utalas van a volt keleti blokk "atmeneti"
gazdasagaira. 

Laci




Worldwatch Press Release on
Private Capital Flows to Developing Countries

HOLD FOR RELEASE
6:00 PM EST
Saturday, February 28, 1998 
Future of Global Environment Hinges on
Surging Flows of Private Capital
International Policy Reforms Needed to Protect Environment and Economies
in Developing Countries
More than $1 trillion of private capital has moved into the developing
world over the last decade-a financial force with growing power to make
or break the health of the environment and the economy, reports a new
Worldwatch Institute study. "Long-term economic success will only come
from investments that harvest natural wealth in ways that leave the
resource base intact for future generations," says Hilary F. French,
Worldwatch's Vice President for Research and author of Investing in the
Future: Harnessing Private Capital Flows for Environmentally Sustainable
Development. 
In the wake of Asia's economic crisis, many experts are now warning that
private financial flows into the developing world have outgrown existing
financial regulatory structures. But few people are asking to what
extent these capital flows have undermined the economy's ecological
foundations. 
"As investors search the world for the highest return, they are often
drawn to countries with bountiful natural resources and weak
environmental laws, a potentially disastrous combination for the
environment and the economy," cautions French. But she also notes that
international investment can benefit the environment. While private
investors are helping to deforest the Brazilian Amazon and are financing
coal-fired power plants in China, they are also underwriting ecotourism
ventures in Costa Rica and wind power projects in India. 
The report identifies a number of strategies for shifting investment out
of environmentally damaging activities and into the cleaner technologies
and enterprises of tomorrow. "As the process of devising international
policies for a globalizing world gets under way in earnest, protecting
the natural resource base that underpins the global economy merits a
prominent place on the agenda," says French. 
Private investors poured $244 billion into the developing world in 1996,
nearly six times as much as public aid that year, according to World
Bank estimates cited in the report. These private flows declined to $175
billion in 1997 as investors pulled their money out of Asia, according
to preliminary estimates by the International Monetary Fund. 
Much of the money now flowing into developing countries is underwriting
projects that are potentially damaging to the environment, according to
the report. International investment in resource extraction, for
example, is flowing rapidly into many countries with valuable natural
assets such as primary forests, mineral and petroleum reserves, and
biological diversity. From 1991 to 1997, international spending on
exploration for nonferrous metals grew six times in Latin America,
almost quadrupled in the Pacific region, and doubled in Africa, notes
the report. The major oil and gas companies are also increasingly
striking deals-and oil-in new locales such as the Central Asian
republics and the South American rainforests. 
With their own forests badly depleted, Asian companies are now vying for
vast timber concessions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, threatening
some of the world's last remaining untouched forests. Brazil, Cambodia,
Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Guyana,
Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Suriname are among
the countries that have granted or are on the brink of granting rights
to log large tracts of primary forests. 
"Countries rich in natural wealth all too often squander this bounty by
investing in ill-conceived projects that mine natural resources for the
short-term economic gain of political elites, at the expense of local
peoples and future generations. A wiser long-term strategy would be to
funnel capital into economic activities that preserve natural
endowments, as a number of innovative experiments now under way aim to
do," says French. Bioprospecting and ecotourism initiatives in Costa
Rica and a sustainable forestry venture in Brazil offer promising
models. 
The spectacular growth of East Asian countries in the early 1990s was
fueled by manufacturing, a strategy many other developing countries are
now trying to replicate. "The manufacturing takeoff is a two-edged
sword," says French. "International investment can facilitate access to
new technologies that minimize energy use and waste generation, helping
developing countries leapfrog over the most damaging phases of
industrialization. But these funds can also bring highly polluting
industries that jeopardize human and ecological health." 
Hazardous industries, such as battery manufacturers, chemical companies,
and computer manufacturing and assembly facilities, are becoming
increasingly concentrated in developing countries as a result, where
safety practices and environmental enforcement and monitoring are
rudimentary at best. The report cites a review of 22 computer-related
companies based in industrial countries, which found that more than half
of their collective manufacturing and assembly operations-processes
intensive in use of acids, solvents, and toxic gases-are now located in
developing countries. 
Major multinational automobile companies are also expanding into the
"emerging markets" of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. If
current projections hold, some three-quarters of the auto factories to
be built over the next three years will go up in these regions. "If
developing countries acquire auto-centric transportation systems along
the lines of the U.S. model, there will be grave consequences for local
air pollution and food security as well as global climate change," warns
French. 
Private companies are also building infrastructure such as power plants,
telecommunications networks, water treatment plants, dams, and toll
roads in many corners of the globe. Inflows of foreign funds for
infrastructure construction climbed from $2.6 billion in 1990 to an
estimated $22.3 billion by 1995. 


________________________________
Laszlo Pinter
Program Officer
Measurement and Indicators Program
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
6th Floor, 161 Portage Avenue East
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 0Y4  CANADA
Telephone:  (204) 958-7715
Fax:  (204) 958-7710
Email:  
http://iisd.ca
Course website at the Natural Resources Institute:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/natural_resources/56718/home.html

"... for he who has once seen the intimate beauty 
of nature cannot tear himself away from it again."

(Konrad Lorenz)
____________________________

Hello, kornyeszesek!

Nem tudom, Ti hogy vagytok vele, de ez a Bos-Nagymaros szerintem hatterbe
szorit minden mas "vizes" problemat. Most mindenki ezzel van elfoglalva. A WWF 
 
a Tisza-menti arteri elovilag megmentesen dolgozik. Ez szep tole.
	Masrol viszont nem hallok.
Mi van pl. a Duna arterevel? 
A 6-os ut menten Te'te'nyne'l nehany km-re Budapesttol epitesi tormelek
lerakohelyet letesitettek par eve, a Duna artereben. Ma'ra becslesem szerint
nehany ezer kobmeter massza disziti folyamunk medret. Ez te'ny.

1., Ez a viszonylag kis terulet tenyleg sokkal ertektelenebb a Tisza-mentinel?
A tormelekkel >>lefojtott<< elovilag az semmi?

2., Ezzel a folyomeder jelentosen beszukult. Esetleges arviz idejen mi van? A
tormelek a gat magassagaig er. Ha megindul a le, akkor a gat fog hamarabb
engedni...

3., Nem ugy nez ki, mint amit be akarnanak zarni. Addig toltik, mig fer?

        _-____________________________________
    >>>  Udv: Csaba     <<<