Title Corporate

Improving France’s economic attractiveness for international investors is a priority for the French government because foreign investment contributes significantly to the creation of long-term employment in France (34,500 jobs created in France in 2007), even within the context of increasing competition from our European partners due to the accelerated globalization of the economy.

The Invest in France Agency listens to what the 20,000 foreign companies based in France have to say. The Agency is based in Paris and works with a network of partners and regional development agencies. The IFA identifies any problems that investors may encounter during business investment operations in France and regularly transmits any proposals for improvements in the legal, tax, social or technical environments to the Prime Minister’s office, which then discusses these issues with the relevant government ministries in order to continually improve the country’s economic attractiveness. Relevant decisions are then taken by the Prime Minister.

These proposals are also fed by discussions undertaken by the Strategic council for attractiveness, which has brought together the French Prime Minister and around fifteen foreign heads of business, every year since 2004. The IFA acts as secretary general to the Strategic council. The latest council, chaired by Mr. François Fillon, was held on January 24th, 2008 at Davos during the World Economic Forum.

Various measures have been announced following the three government seminars on the economic attractiveness of France, and these measures now number approximately 100. They are based around four different themes (all the measures, and the ways in which they have been implemented are listed in tables that can be accessed by clicking on the titles below):

• Improving the economic and tax environment for businesses

• Improving taxation for individuals

• Improving the tax and social security environment for research activities

• Improving France’s attractiveness for foreign students