It may sound like an open door, but investing in emerging economies, working on sustainable trade relations, and growing together is essential for future resilience, earning capacity, and competitiveness in Europe. We need to invest abroad, using development finance combined with regular commercial finance.
In Europe we are in the midst of the debate on how to ensure our position among the world’s top and most innovative economies and how to build a more resilient economy while keeping the benefits of trade and international cooperation. The Letta and Draghi reports, as well as day-to-day geopolitics, show us that our competitive edge is heavily under pressure and that urgent action needs to be taken. In that quest, the focus is often on investments in start-ups and scale-ups in order to boost innovation and future productivity growth, and increasingly on resilience instead of on-demand delivery. These two focus areas are important, as are a capital markets union and a critical look at our heavily regulated single market. In light of the geopolitical developments, this needs to be done, including a look at our state aid framework, which might need adjustments when you look at it from the perspective of global competition in a world with a few global power blocs.
We argue that alongside these critical steps, we must keep on investing in partnerships and investments outside the Union, to ensure European future earning capacity, particularly in developing economies with growth potential. We need to be less inward-looking and embrace a strong new model in which international trade is about both giving and receiving.
»In future-proofing our economies, our focus often lies on supporting innovation, startups, scale-ups, and tech companies at home, as they are rightly seen as growth engines. This is urgently needed, but the reflex to look inward – »we already have enough to do here« – is too narrow. This creates the false presumption that foreign trade and investment are less urgent and that we can cut billions from development cooperation. This is a regrettable misconception. Development investments actually strengthen our trade relations and, in turn, our ability to reduce strategic dependencies. By sustaining development finance, we can build necessary new coalitions with new partners in a changing world order.
Take the open economy of the Netherlands, for example. Our prosperity is firmly rooted in international trade, which accounts for around 2.6 million jobs in the Netherlands – about one-third of all jobs. Statistics Netherlands confirms in the 2025 Trade Monitor that foreign investment boosts Dutch exports and employment. The Netherlands ranks among the world’s top five export countries. Each year, exports generate approximately €375 billion in revenue, more than one-third of everything we earn in the Netherlands. Alongside this, trade strengthens knowledge exchange, capital flows, and the productivity of Dutch companies, while reinforcing trade relationships.
On the global stage, active industrial policy and protectionism are gaining prominence. In today’s »give-and-take« economy, we need to embrace a model based on mutual benefit. Linking business, investment, and innovation from Europe to the economies of strategic partners in emerging markets can strengthen our own trade and competitiveness in return.
While it is tempting to join the transactional approach that is swiftly gaining ground, we should focus on the value added that we can shape through true economic partnerships. We should be entering an era of targeted public investment in infrastructure in developing economies. These investments should be considered in their broadest sense: they should foster sustainable development and trade flows of crucial goods, open markets for European companies and their partners, and boost earning capacity. This requires sufficient levels of development finance, blending capacity, and financiers that can take on roles as developers of new financial instruments as well as bridges between governments, development finance institutions, and commercial finance.
As doing business in emerging economies is often riskier and project development may require more development aid to come to fruition, the market alone will not drive the win-wins.
Europe offers a long-term partnership alternative to state-sponsored initiatives from China and the United States, which are increasingly driven by quick wins and the extraction of critical raw materials. The Global Gateway initiative is our European partnership offer. It has already mobilised €300 billion for sustainable and reliable infrastructure in partner countries, particularly in key areas such as energy, transport, digital connectivity, health, and education. The approach combines development, strategic autonomy, climate resilience, and fair partnerships.
We work to ensure that critical raw materials can become an anchor point for development, with processing and value addition carried out in their countries of origin. At the same time, we work to upgrade infrastructure, digitalisation, know-how, and offtake agreements with Europe. Win-win.
An example of the European approach is the Lobito Corridor, an infrastructure project establishing a railway and logistics operations between the port of Lobito in Angola and the mineral-rich regions of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This corridor not only strengthens the transparency and transport of critical raw materials – indispensable for the energy transition and digital technologies – but also upgrades infrastructure into modern and sustainable trade arteries. By providing the involved countries with access to global markets via the Atlantic Ocean, the project contributes to regional integration, economic development, and stability, while increasing trade in high-demand goods.
The Netherlands is involved in the Lobito Corridor through Invest International, which has committed to long term project development and investment, aiming to realise over €100 million in infrastructure investments. Active development of a logistics platform is underway to facilitate trade and agro-industrial development along the corridor, and connect CRM developments to efficient logistics operations in the region. During the EU–AU Summit in November 2025, we launched a trial shipment of avocados from Lobito to Rotterdam. It was the first-ever EU-certified container, marking a milestone in sustainability and future-proof trade. Angolan authorities were trained by the Dutch Food Authority to ensure compliance with EU import requirements. This strengthens EU–Angola trade relations and showcases Dutch expertise in logistics and corridor development.
In short, do not view development cooperation and investment in developing economies as expenses, but as indispensable investments in our future, honest partnerships, and business. We need a clear focus on mutual interests at home as well as among partners abroad, with stronger attention to global and local resilience, productivity growth, future earning capacity, and a level playing field.
By expanding access to early stage project development funding in the next financial framework, we can improve private sector participation and increase the quantity and quality of projects to achieve our strategic objectives and accelerate local impact. This will ultimately enhance our economic resilience, open new markets, strengthen competitiveness, and promote global stability. Only through strategic collaboration – where aid and trade go hand in hand – can we create a future that is more resilient, and more sustainable.
An adjusted version of this article has earlier been published on the website of Invest International; CEO Column Melanie Maas Geesteranus - Invest International.
