This article draws from a L NCTC / ITNCTAD-sponsored study entitled The Impact of Trade-related Investment

related investment measures (TRIMs) have become a sub-ject of considerable contention in North-South economic relations. The North argues that TRIMS cause distortions in patterns of trade and investment because business deci-sions on the part of TNC's come to be made on the basis of considerations other than market forces. The South argues that TRIMs can be useful policy tools to promote develop-ment objectives and strengthen trade balances. The present article reviews the principal arguments in this regard. The term trade-related investment measures is very broad. There is no commonly accepted method to draw the line among different kinds of measures (in home or host countries) which may affect the location of production and the consequent flows of goods, services, technology and capital among markets. The Uruguay Round of negotiations has produced a list of 14 TRIMs, intended not as a de-finitive catalogue, but as illustrations of the types of measures to be considered: investment incentives, local equity requirements, licens-ing requirements, remittance restrictions, foreign exchange restric-tions, manufacturing limitations, transfer-of-technology require-ments, domestic sales requirements, manufacturing requirements, product-mandating requirements, trade-balancing requirements, local content requirements, export requirements and import substi-tution requirements. In addition, certain home-country and corpor-ate practices could be considered TRIMs to the extent that they in