Country Economic Memorandum
254 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
4 results
Items in this collection
Publication Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021: Boosting Foreign Direct Investment(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) World BankForeign direct investment (FDI) can bring many benefits to Kosovo’s economy, creating more and better jobs and spurring greater and more resilient economic growth. Many transition economies have used FDI as a pillar of their structural transformation and modernization efforts. The small number of firms in Kosovo that include FDI are more productive than other firms, and they were more resilient in the wake of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) economic recession. In Kosovo, FDI inflows have been concentrated in sectors that provide limited potential for productivity spillovers and benefits to the domestic economy. Kosovo needs to adopt proactive policies to strengthen its investment competitiveness and investor outreach in order to unlock more and higher-quality FDI. This note presents an ambitious reform agenda that can help improve Kosovo’s investment competitiveness and investor outreach. It presents a step-by-step reform program for unlocking the full potential of FDI for economic growth and job creation in Kosovo that the government can implement in the short to medium term. The note is structured in three sections. The first section looks at Kosovo’s FDI performance and assesses the quantity and quality of the FDI attracted so far. The second section benchmarks Kosovo’s locational FDI determinants, considering a set of macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators for its overall FDI competitiveness. The third section combines the findings from the first two sections with an in-depth assessment of Kosovo’s policy, legal, and institutional framework for investment to present a targeted reform agenda and policy action plan to help attract more and higher-quality investments to Kosovo.Publication Firm Productivity and Economic Growth in Turkey(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-04-29) World BankTurkey’s pace of income convergence has globally been one of the most remarkable of the past fifteen years. Sustaining growth and improvements in living standards in Turkey will require higher productivity in the economy. The Turkey Productivity Report (2019) provides an in-depth analysis of firm productivity in Turkey and how this adds up to economic growth in the country. The report has six parts. The first two provide macro and micro diagnosis of productivity in the economy – what are the productivity trends, how have these affected economic growth, what firms in what industry are the most productive, and are they absorbing an increasing or decreasing share of resources? From here the report analyzes specific policy areas that might explain firm productivity dynamics in Turkey – namely firms’ integration in the global economy, access to innovation support, the quality of human capital, and the business environment including competition. The report finds that economic integration and innovation have boosted firm-level productivity, though reforms could further accelerate these positive impacts. Productivity gains could accelerate the demand for more educated and skilled workers. The growth of more productive firms could in turn also be accelerated through reforms that increase competition and reduce regulatory burden.Publication Moldova: Rekindling Economic Dynamism(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04) World Bank GroupThis current Country Economic Memorandum is intended to provide a comprehensive analysis of growthconstraints and recommendations. While it updates some aspects of these earlier studies, its main focus is on enterprise performance. Insofar as enterprise performance occurs in a larger institutional context, this focus necessarily touches on several of the earlier themes, particularly the rule of law, business regulation, and education. The first chapter presents a diagnostic that highlights the problem of falling productivity in the enterprise sector and points to elements of market structure (particularly state ownership) that undermine productivity growth and curtail the growth of the private sector. This chapter also focuses on demand-side issues in export markets, and highlights policy lessons from sectors with high productivity that could drive future growth. A second chapter focuses on foreign firms, which are high productivity enterprises within Moldova, and looks at investment promotion and ways to improve the contribution of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the economy. Subsequent chapters extend the analysis to incentives shaping enterprise performance and opportunities for growth led by the private sector, particularly: competition and regulatory policies (Chapter 3); tax policy insofar as it affects incentives and tax buoyancy that underpin macroeconomic stability (Chapter 4); and finally, education as a crucial input into enterprise development (Chapter 5).Publication Guinea-Bissau Country Economic Memorandum : Terra Ranca! A Fresh Start(Washington, DC, 2015-01-12) World BankAfter decades of turmoil and instability, a period of calm and progress evolved in Guinea-Bissau in 2009. A military coup in April 2012 interrupted it. A fresh start is needed to alter the dynamics that kept Guinea-Bissau poor. In 2013, Gross National Income per capita was US$590. Average economic growth barely kept pace with population growth. In 2010, poverty at the national poverty line of US$2 a day was 70 percent; extreme poverty at US$1 a day was 33 percent. These numbers have increased from their 2002 levels and they are estimated to have increased further since 2010. It is time to make a fresh start and turn the page on anemic growth and poverty. Guinea-Bissau s elections of May and June 2014 are described by many observers as the freest and fairest in the country s history. Voter registration and turnout were at record-levels. The conditions for progress and stability are favorable. Guinea-Bissau is a rural economy, almost entirely dependent on a single cash crop: cashew. It is the main source of income for most of the country s poor. Cashew nuts are Guinea-Bissau s main export, accounting for 85 to 90 percent of the country s total exports. The balance of payments is dominated by cashew, on the export side, and food and fuel, among imports. The economy is open, with exports and imports by land and sea amounting to more than 70 percent of GDP. Shocks to cashew, rice and oil prices have a considerable effect on the current account balance. Official Development Assistance (ODA) makes a critical contribution to supporting the state budget. In 2011, Guinea-Bissau ranked 20th among the world s most aid dependent countries. Recently, policy mistakes aggravated an already dire situation. However, the 2014 cashew campaign was been better than the 2013 campaign, and the prospects for a pick-up in growth have improved.