The Italian debt crisis reminds us all of the need to attract inward investment, but it also tells us that politicians are not always the best people to define your proposition.
In a speech to the New York stock exchange in 2003, Italy's silver-tongued PM announced:
"Italy is now a great country to invest in... today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."
It certainly makes a refreshing change from "centrally located with a cost-effective workforce, great quality of life and available sites and premises" but I don't think it had many investors queuing up to invest.
Don't think that it's just the Italians who try to add a bit of sex appeal to inward investment marketing, the Invest in Germany campaign with Claudia Schiffer in 2006 was just a slicker version of the Berlusconi approach to FDI.
