Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that might be affecting global investment decisions. Central Asia countries are being used as the peer group to analyze the relative attractiveness level of them for the potential investors and Europe and Central Asia countries are being used to determine the factors that might affect the investments into such economies as well as the relative importance of such factors among themselves. Canonical Correlation Analysis and Factor Rating Method are used for this purpose. The results of the study shows that while population, length of railways, oil production, inflation, electric production and exchange rate change are the most important factors affecting investment decisions, Income (GNI), GDP, time to start business, unemployment rate, lending rate, time to enforce contracts, growth in GDP and length of highways do not have high effects on investment decisions. Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan are the most attractive market while Turkmenistan, Georgia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic being the least attractive markets among the Central Asia countries for investors

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