Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation in Focus
26 items available
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The series captures the experience, innovative approaches and solutions for development of the World Bank Group covering financial sector topics of relevance to both the public and private sectors. The series is comprised of short knowledge notes, policy notes, case studies, lessons learned or a combination therein. This series was formerly known as Finance in Focus.
Items in this collection
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Publication
Attracting Foreign Direct Investment into Tunisia through Outreach Campaigns
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-01)After the Arab Spring, Tunisia urgently needed to create productive jobs and economic opportunities for its young population. Attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in priority sectors was a key pillar of the Government’s strategy to deliver this job agenda. With the support of the World Bank Group, the Investment Promotion Agency of Tunisia engaged in proactive outreach campaigns which resulted in 21 investment leads and three announced FDI projects, including a manufacturing plant by Japan’s Sumitomo. This case study shows that well-planned and executed investor outreach campaigns can lead to concrete investment results and contribute to a country’s development objectives. It provides key success factors useful to other countries wanting to engage in outreach. More than ever before (in a post-COVID-19 world), outreach can play a key role for countries in their efforts to reposition and take advantage of new investment opportunities from near shoring and emerging sectors. The paper provides examples of IPAs continuing their outreach efforts virtually by leveraging technology. -
Publication
Policy Options to Mitigate Political Risk and Attract FDI
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-08-12)Political risks covers a wide range of issues, and this note focuses on a subset of political risk: the risks that arise from government actions, whether political or regulatory, that can affect the profitability of an investment in a foreign country. Policies adopted and implemented by governments can directly mitigate these risks. Bad governance and economic crises are two big drivers of political risk. Both are currently prevalent globally, but especially in developing countries. The purpose of this note is to summarize how political risk caused by government actions can impact foreign investment, and what tools countries can use to manage and mitigate such risks. -
Publication
Foreign Direct Investment, Backward Linkages, and Productivity Spillovers: What Governments Can Do to Strengthen Linkages and Their Impact
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-01)This note provides an up-to-date summary of the academic evidence around the drivers and channels for technology transfer and productivity spillovers by multinational corporations (MNC) operating in host economies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a major contributor to development. Besides the direct benefits FDI brings in terms of increased capital, employment and exports, the presence and operations of MNCs can also help improve the productivity of local firms through backward linkages and offer an important channel for the integration of local firms into global value chains (GVC). However, several market failures exist that get in the way of these linkages and spillovers fully materializing. This note highlights the main challenges as well as some policy recommendations for host economy Governments to consider. -
Publication
Strengthening Service Delivery of Investment Promotion Agencies: The Comprehensive Investor Services Framework
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03)Research shows that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) may be the best public institutions to meet government objectives for attracting, establishing, retaining, expanding, and linking productive private investment. As part of this, IPAs need to provide relevant, high-quality services to investors at different stages of the investment life cycle. Informed by its research and experience in global operations, the World Bank Group introduces the Comprehensive Investor Services Framework (CISF), a catalog of specific services to meet investor needs. IPAs can use this investor-centric framework to design service offerings in line with their strategic focus and promotion capacity. -
Publication
Institutions for Investment: Establishing a High-Performing Institutional Framework for Foreign Direct Investment
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-12-31)A well-functioning institutional framework can result in higher levels of foreign direct investment. It requires several factors such as a shared strategic vision, solid institutions capable of delivering on their specific mandates and collaborating beyond their walls, and a strong political and financial support for all. The note describes key government functions for investment, suggests a process and principles for creating optimal institutional structures to deliver them, and provides examples. In particular, it examines the role of investment promotion agencies (IPAs) the agency usually tasked with operationalizing government FDI goals as well as the dilemmas that governments face in the context of institutional specialization versus function consolidation. -
Publication
How Countries Can Fully Implement the New York Convention: A Critical Tool for Enforcement of International Arbitration Decisions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12-30)The year 2018 marked the 60th anniversary of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, the most important international convention in the area of international commercial arbitration. The Convention is also said to be the most successful international treaty in the area of private international law. This note primarily targets policy makers and their legal advisors in countries looking at ways to improve their business environment, to become more attractive locations for trade and investment, through better dispute resolution options for international transactions. First, the note explains that international commercial arbitration, as part of countries' legally recognized dispute resolution options, is critical to cross-border contract enforcement. As countries strengthen their international arbitration regimes, they improve their competitiveness in international markets and increase investment and trade by reducing transaction risks and the cost of new infrastructure projects. Countries can improve their international commercial arbitration systems by passing modern legislation consistent with international best practice, ratifying international arbitration conventions, strengthening judicial capacity to enforce arbitral awards, and investing in local arbitration centers. -
Publication
Which Countries are Better Prepared to Compete Globally in the Disruptive Technology Age?: A Rapid, Forward-Looking Analysis of Countries' Share of the Global Private Sector
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10-23)This note provides a rapid, forward-looking analysis of countries’ share of the global private sector. By using technology-enabled Unicorns as a leading indicator of the future’s global private sector, which is dominated by a technology platform business model of zero marginal costs and winner-takes-all dynamics, this analysis provides an indication of relative gains and losses of countries in the transition to a technology-driven new economy. The results are tested by comparing the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of countries and their relative position in this transition, which is then measured using a forward-looking approach. This analysis is a first approximation toward a predictive assessment and requires further research. However, the results provided in this note can help policy makers consider and assess new factors to deal with the uncertainties of disruptive technologies in their economies.