The Foreign Investment Council (FIC) welcomes the initiative of the Government of issuing a new Investment Law and, provided that it will be accompanied by an appropriate non-bureaucratic, consistent and transparent implementation mechanism, FIC considers that it can only have a positive impact and encourage investment.

The consultation process was efficient although organized within a short period of time, and the FIC welcomed the opportunity given by the Government to provide comments on the draft law.

Some of the FIC recommendations such as "grand fathering rules" i.e. introducing clear regulations for investors that have started investments and have been granted facilities under the old law and will finalize their investments under the new law, were considered. Equally, FIC's recommendations to provide sanctions in case of investor's non-compliance with the assumed obligations of investment were introduced in the draft. However, a number of recommendations regarding clear procedures to apply for facilities, check the compliance with the eligibility criteria left to be solved by the Norms of Application. Therefore, FIC recommends that the Norms of Application be drafted in parallel with the current draft law and be implemented as soon as the law is enforced. The implementation of the Law raises some concerns regarding the administrative capacity to handle such a Law. Currently, there are different ministries involved in granting incentives to investors therefore the enforcement of the law will need a strong agency to grant and to supervise the implementation.