The newly released UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2018 reveals a slowdown in international production and global value chains (GVCs). Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows fell by 23% in 2017. The slowdown on FDI and GVC are major concerns for policymakers, in particular in developing countries. Both the value of cross-border meters and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield investment saw a decrease. Global flows are forecast to increase marginally but remain below the average over the past decade. Tax reforms in the US are likely to affect FDI and the broadening trade tension could have negative impact investment in GVCs.  According to the report, the negative trend of FDI is largely partly attributed to a decrease in rates of return across al regions, which also affect long-term FDI prospects. The average return worldwide on FDI is down from 8.1% in 2012 to 6.7% and returns in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced sharply drops. The investment downturn also affect the rate of expansion of international production, which results in a slowdown and leads to a shift of the modalities of international production and of cross-border exchanges of factors of production from tangible to intangible forms. The increasing slow rate of productive assets and employees negatively affect the FDI prospects of developing countries.  UNCTAD’s data suggests the decrease of foreign value added in trade (the key GVC indicator). The growth of GVCs has also stagnated, indicating a clear correlation with the FDI trend and confirming the impact of the trend of FDI on the patterns of global trade. FDI now accounts for less than a quarter in the least developed countries while it remains the largest external sources of finance for developing countries.   At the same time, the report shows that during the past decade many developed and developing countries have adopted industrial development strategies or policies and the past five years have seen an increase in the adoption of new policies. These new industrial policies are increasingly complex and diverse, which tackle new imperatives, e.g. build-up of sectors linked to the UN SDGs, GVS integration and ungrudging, the knowledge economy. Some of these strategies include vertical policies for the build-up of specific industries, some provides horizontal competitiveness-enhancing policies, and others focus on new industrial revolution. The revolution of new industrial strategies is affecting the investment patterns and most of these policies provide detailed investment policy tools, e.g. investment promotion and facilitation, special economic zones, incentives and performance requirements, as well as investment screening mechanism. Since these industrial policies are a key diver of investment policy trend, the report suggests that a strategic review of investment policies for industry development is necessary.