Welcome to the IPAnet Briefing, a periodic newsletter for IPAnet users --providing news and event information of interest to the international investment community. The Briefing is published by the Office of Investment Marketing Services at the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). If you would like to read the Briefing on-line with all hyperlinks active, an HTML version is available at  http://www.ipanet.net/ipabrief/2_2.htm. If you are not an IPAnet user and would like to receive the IPAnet Briefing, please register in IPAnet or send an e-mail to IPAnet@worldbank.org. Access to IPAnet is free although registration is required. Please keep your registration information current in order to ensure uninterrupted delivery of the IPAnet Briefing. This issue of the IPAnet Briefing features: I. Review of Investment Information Available on IPAnet, PrivatizationLink, and Elsewhere on the Internet II. PrivatizationLink Partners Expand their Investment Information Resources III. Slovakia's New Round of Investment Liberalization Reported by IPAnet IV. The Canadian International Development Agency Joins MIGA and the World Bank in Developing PrivatizationLink Russia V. Your Input Sought for the Next IPAnet Release VI. Alethinos International Investments Joins IPAnet VII. MIGA News and Activities VIII. Upcoming Investment-Related Events IX. An Overview of IPAnet Membership Benefits I. Review of Investment Information Available on IPAnet, PrivatizationLink, and on the Internet 1. Over 500 new resources added to IPAnet. IPAnet's collection of investment-related information and analysis has just been expanded with the addition of more than 500 new and updated documents and Web sites.  Click on IPAnet's What's New button to see a sample of what has been added. * Project opportunities abound in IPAnet - New FDI opportunities in Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, many from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (http://www.dbsa.org/), have been catalogued in IPAnet's Databases under Investment Opportunities. Information on 32 new privatization projects in Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Macedonia, Moldova, Nepal, Romania, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine, Mexico, South Africa and Zambia is now available in IPAnet's Databases under Privatization Project Profiles. * Hundreds of new country guides available in IPAnet - The 1999 Country Commercial Guides from the U.S. Department of Commerce  (http://www.doc.gov/) for 52 countries are now available in IPAnet's  Databases under Business Conditions: Quick Reference. The 1998 country   analyses from the CIA Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html) for 206 countries are also catalogued in Databases under Business Conditions: Quick Reference. * 1998 external debt data now catalogued in IPAnet - The joint BIS-IMF-OECD-World Bank external debt data for 171 developing countries and transition economies are now catalogued by country in IPAnet's Databases under Business Conditions: Economic and Social Data. 2. Northern Light adds new resources. Northern Light  (http://www.nlsearch.com/ipanet), a leading research engine and IPAnet's latest content partner, has added Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates and Investext to its Special Collection - an on-line library of   over 5,400 business and trade publications, newswires and databases available on a pay-per-view basis. Wharton Econometric Forecasting  Associates provides in-depth economic reports and statistical analyses, and Investext is the world's largest electronic collection of investment banking and broker-analyst reports. 3. New products available in Trade Compass. Trade Compass (http://www2.tradecompass.com/partners/IPANET/), IPAnet's content partner, has added STAT-USA Plus (http://statusa.tradecompass.com/) and the World Trade Analyzer (http://www.tradecompass.com/trade_analyzer/) to its ever-growing list of products and services. STAT-USA Plus is a collection of product market research, country commercial guides and other business, as well as economic statistics, collected from more than 50 U.S.  government agencies. The overall database, which exceeds 400,000 pages, is updated daily. The World Trade Analyzer is an 8GB database of country  trade flow data covering over 190 countries and regions and 600 different commodities for the period 1980-1996. Other new resources of relevance to the investor community include the Daily Brief, which publishes current news from the world of international commerce and business, and the News Release Center, a service that provides international coverage of press releases. 4. Latest information on FDI trends and developments now available. The World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org) and UNCTAD