Country Economic Memorandum

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/2184

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Rwanda Country Economic Memorandum: Pathways to Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Rwanda
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-13) World Bank
The report outlines an agenda to strengthen information and communication technology (ICT) services in Rwanda, where network coverage has improved but broadband uptake remains low. Rwanda needs to boost digital service use among consumers and the private sector by increasing access to affordable smart devices, expanding digital skills initiatives, and improving broadband quality and affordability through network upgrades, densification, and stricter competition enforcement. Key regulatory measures include a reference interconnection over (RIO), better spectrum management for next-gen technologies like 5G, and infrastructure sharing to lower service costs. While recent laws on personal data protection and cybersecurity have created a solid regulatory foundation, their implementation is still in progress. To achieve global standards, Rwanda must enhance regulations related to nonpersonal data portability and net neutrality, as current rules restrict cross-border data flows vital for digital market integration and e-commerce. This effort should be supported by regional and global collaboration on regulatory harmonization. Further public investment is needed to develop foundational digital public infrastructure, such as identification, trusted data sharing, and digital payments systems, to scale digital services safely and affordably. Additionally, improvements in the enabling framework and skills development are crucial for wider adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
From Swimming in Sand to High and Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap to Reduce Distortions in the Allocation of Resources and Talent in the Pakistani Economy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) World Bank Group
This report focuses on growth in Pakistan, and on key aspects of its proximate determinants: productivity, capital, and talent accumulation. Productivity is crucial in accounting for differences in standards of living across countries and time. In addition, and particularly at the level of development of Pakistan, factor accumulation, investment, and human capital, also matters. Specific and policy relevant questions around these broad themes are this report's center of attention. The underlying framework of analysis and orientation of public policy recommendations is what is known as the 'ABC' of growth. This 'ABC' implies improving allocative efficiency of resources and talent, encouraging business-to-business connections and spillovers, and strengthening firms' capabilities. Public policies oriented to create an enabling environment around these three pillars will be powerful in boosting sustainable growth. However, the efficient allocation of talent and resources, and the business-to business interactions leading to spillovers and the conditions to upgrade capabilities, are limited by economic distortions (or market failures) that inhibit the growth process, sometimes making it as difficult as swimming in sand.
Resilient Development - A Strategy to Diversify Cambodia’s Growth Model: Cambodia Country Economic Memorandum
(World Bank, Phnom Penh, 2021-12) World Bank
The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Cambodian economy—where the growth slowdown was among the most pronounced in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region—lies in the country’s growth generating process. Recent growth has been remarkable, but insufficiently diversified in products, markets, and factor inputs. The diversification problem is rooted in low and declining productivity; low quality and weak export linkages; and high foreign direct investment (FDI) but low domestic investment. Just when past success was fueling high ambitions for future growth—to become upper middle income by 2030 and high income by 2050—the pandemic threatens to put those targets out of reach. Cambodia’s policymakers have the opportunity to build a new and stronger growth path—by enabling productivity of firms and workers, diversifying exports, and harnessing domestic investment. But an ambitious reform agenda is needed—one that focuses on improving capabilities, strengthening regulations, and investing in infrastructure.
Assessing Uzbekistan’s Transition: Country Economic Memorandum
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11-08) Izvorski, Ivailo; Vatyan, Arman; Trushin, Eskender; Abdul-Hamid, Husein; Dalvit, Nicolo; Safarov, Maksudjon; Iootty, Mariana; Novikova, Marina; Melecky, Martin; Ahmedov, Mohirjon; Manuilova, Natalia; Zorya, Sergiy; Nagaraj, Vinayak; Izvorski, Ivailo; Melecky, Martin
Uzbekistan’s transition from planning to market started almost thirty years ago following its independence from the Soviet Union. For most of this period, economic modernization and transformation were stalled, with little change in institutions and policies from those prevailing at the time of the planned economy. In late 2016, Uzbekistan surprised by launching reforms with a breadth and speed that at times exceeded the pace of those observed in some of the earlier reformers at a similar stage of the process. In November 2018, building on the results from more than a year of economic reforms, the government announced the agenda for the next phase of its bold and ambitious economic transformation. In terms of the pace of transition, Uzbekistan’s record has been mixed but appropriate, given that reforms are dependent on experience with markets and prices, initial conditions, and institutional strength. Before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic started, the reform momentum was supported by comfortable external and fiscal buffers and a robust global economy. The buffers are still sizable, even with doubling of public debt since 2017, and a sign of strength but the pull from the global economy has been substantially diminished. The rest of the introduction reviews progress in the key areas of economic transformation.
Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021: Boosting Foreign Direct Investment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) World Bank
Foreign 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.
Removing Regulatory Barriers to Competition
(Washington, DC, 2021-11) World Bank
Competition can drive productivity growth in Kosovo, especially in the context of the post-Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovery. As the economy rebuilds, it is key that markets function smoothly, and that anticompetitive firm behavior or government intervention do not constrain the path to recovery. Competitive product markets can help a country recover from economic shocks more quickly. Competition in product markets can also prop-up economic recovery in a more inclusive way for the poorest households. Kosovo has made significant progress towards pro-competition regulation of product markets but there is still significant room for improvement. Although the product market regulation (PMR) indicators are limited in scope and should therefore be considered as an entry point for further analysis, this assessment allows to identify potential constraints to competition and possible policy reforms. Kosovo can increase competition by: (a) eliminating public owned enterprise (POE) - related barriers to competition to ensure a level playing field for private and public operators in markets where they compete, (b) improving the regulatory process and facilitating business registration to boost market entry, and (c) introducing policy reforms in network sectors and professional services to eliminate regulatory barriers to competition and avoid anticompetitive practices.
Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021: Gearing Up for a More Productive Future
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) World Bank
Kosovo, one of the youngest countries in an aging Europe, took its first steps on the road to greater prosperity a quarter of a century ago. Kosovo’s economy has experienced significant growth in recent years. The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has triggered Kosovo’s first ever recession in 2020. While spending on education has more than doubled, the quality of human capital needs to improve. And barriers to women’s economic empowerment need to be lifted. Proximity to major markets in Europe and a youthful population provide an opportunity for growth. Kosovo is one of the youngest countries in an aging Europe. Trade facilitation and logistics connectivity are getting better. Proximity to a large and affluent market, low taxes and labor costs, a resilient and liquid financial sector, and strong ties with its diaspora will help support growth.
Economic Geography Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21) Bundervoet, Tom; Masaki, Takaaki
This background note analyzes the economic geography of the Horn of Africa using the framework of the 2009 Word Development Report. For the purpose of this report, the Horn of Africa (henceforth HoA) comprises of five countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. This note first seeks to provide a descriptive snapshot of recent socio-economic trends in the HoA countries vis-à-vis the regional trends in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) as a whole. Second, it sheds light on the economic geography of the HoA region with a particular focus on 3D (density, distance, and division). Inparticular, this note highlights that borderlands of the HoA countries suffer from a combination of low density and high distance that hinders theborderlands from tapping their full economic potential. It finally concludes with a set of policy recommendations for removing barriers to sustainable growth in the region.
A Framework for Enhancing Intra-regional Connectivity in the Horn of Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21) Kunaka, Charles
This background paper systematically maps and assesses the connectivity of cities in the Horn of Africa (HoA) and uses the results to proposes a number of policy perspectives on how to strategically boost connectivity in different parts of the region. Analytically, this is achieved through network analysis of the directness, the diversity, topology and the density of HoA cities’ transport infrastructure connections. Crucially, network analysis allows proxying HoA cities’ potential to participate in value chains at various geographical scales and identifying key areas of possible intervention. Results can guide institutional and governance measures that can be taken to influence connectivity as a whole and for specific cities and transport corridors in particular. The output can thus help determine the interventions that are needed to tackle bottlenecks in corridors, addressing infrastructure, policy and regulatory constraints. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the rationale for an analysis of inter-urban connectivity in general and its linkages with the broader topic of regional integration and the economic geographies of the HoA in particular. Section 3 discusses our analytical framework, while Section 4 discusses the results. The paper is concluded with a discussion of key policy perspectives in section 5.
Horn of Africa Regional Economic Memorandum: Overview
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21) Brenton, Paul; Edjigu, Habtamu; Masaki, Takaaki; Sienaert, Alexis
The objective of this Regional Economic Memorandum (REM) is to strengthen the economic analysis available to policymakers on the challenges and opportunities for regional economic integration to support job creation and economic transformation in the Horn of Africa. It assesses the current state of regional economic integration, how policies and investments can deepen this integration, and how this could help to address the opportunities and challenges confronting the region. The analysis applies both an economic geography perspective (based on the 3Ds framework of the 2009 WDR – density, distance, and division) and the lens of the jobs and economic transformation (JET) agenda, whilst taking into account fragility and conflict and the region’s complex and evolving political economy. This overview synthesizes the key findings of the analysis conducted for the HoA REM, full details of which are presented in a series of Background Papers. The overview briefly describes key aspects of the region’s economy and development progress (Section 2). Next, in Section 3, it presents features of the economic geography of the region and some key results from economic modeling and transport connectivity analysis. The findings demonstrate the salience of the JET agenda in the Horn, and this and its implications are discussed in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 concludes by highlighting the main policy messages which emerge from the REM’s regional-level analysis.