The United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement require bold action to improve people’s well-being while protecting the environment. Measures to generate investment to tackle a range of economic, social and environmental challenges are central to this global agenda. A stable investment environment, supported by a strong, coherent legal framework governing international investments, is essential to its success. In Asia and the Pacific, reforms still need to be completed to deliver simpler, more transparent and equitable rules-based investment regimes. This is important, because foreign direct investment (FDI) makes a vital contribution to growth and development in the Asia and the Pacific. In recent years, the region has received up to half of annual total global inflows. It continues to outperform the global average, and although starting from a low base, FDI to the region’s least developed countries has trebled since 2005. Asia-Pacific countries are also becoming an important source of capital for financing outbound investments to our region and beyond. Outflows from developing Asian economies have increased significantly, compared with a decline in outflows from regional developed economies.