An ambitious goal of UNCTAD starting next year through 2030 is to unlock sovereign funds and pension funds as medium-and longer-term investment funds for FDI, rather than speculative funds looking for the maximum short-term returns, Kituyi said.

UNCTAD publishes the World Investment Report annually, with the 2014 issue due next month. This year, it's titled "Investing in Sustainable Development Goals".

FDI registers healthy growth

China's FDI inflow down 1.47% in March

"We noted very steady FDI outflows from China, which are projected to surpass inflows in a very short time," Kituyi said.

China was the second-largest FDI recipient in the world after the United States last year, and it was the third-largest outbound investor.

FDI inflows to China reached $117 billion last year, only $32 billion behind the US, while China's FDI outflows reached $90 billion, only $27 billion less than the inflows, according to UNCTAD.

In the 1990s, outflows only accounted for one-fifth of FDI inflows.

"From 2005 to 2011, FDI inflows into R&D activities in China increased from $40 million to nearly $5 billion, which is very significant and allows China to move up the value chain. One area worth our attention is the increasing sophistication and internationalization of Chinese companies, or Chinese transnational corporations linking the global value chains. They're significant in terms of Chinese FDI outflows," Kituyi said.

Ge Shunqi, deputy head of the Institute of International Economics at Nankai University in Tianjin, said that the establishment of the global framework of investment is "very urgent".