Private Sector Development, Privatization, and Industrial Policy
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Publication
Reforming Business Registration in Greece: A Case Study
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09-13)This case study explores the reforms of the business registration process implemented in Greece since 2005. It identifies lessons that can be valuable for public servants and policymakers in other countries, especially those who are considering reforming their business registration systems. The case study can also be useful to Greek policymakers and practitioners as they reform other areas of the business environment. In 2004, Greek entrepreneurs had to complete several procedures and go through a burdensome court-based process to register a business. Research suggests that streamlining business registration has the potential to support entrepreneurship, encourage the creation of new firms, and reduce informality, but of course needs to be considered in the backdrop of the broader business climate. From this perspective, establishing one-stop shops facilitates the registration of firms, which may be deterred by complex entry regulations. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Burkina Faso: Growing Burkina Faso’s Private Sector and Harnessing it to Bolster Economic Resilience
(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-07-01)A small landlocked economy in the heart of West Africa’s French-speaking Sahel, Burkina Faso is characterized by its modest economic size, with a rapid population growth, with one of the highest per capita birth rates in the world. Burkina Faso needs to create 300,000 jobs annually to match its demographic growth, while about ninety percent of its workers are in the informal sector. Despite sustained robust economic growth over the past two decades driven by cotton and gold exports, private investment is low. Compounding the considerable development challenges that it faces, Burkina Faso is currently confronted by acute security and climatic threats, together with emerging fiscal risks. This country private sector diagnostic (CPSD) therefore investigates whether opportunities exist for the private sector to contribute more substantially to Burkina Faso’s development. The CPSD proposes a platform for action aimed at boosting Burkina Faso’s development through greater private sector investment. The remainder of the report provides an overview of: (i) the private sector environment; (ii) the cross-cutting constraints to the private sector; (iii) the critical enabling sector bottlenecks to the private sector; (iv) the opportunities for the private sector; and (v) a series of priority private sector focused recommendations. -
Publication
Yemen Bringing Back Business Project: Risky Business - Impact of Conflict on Private Enterprises
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06)Escalating in March 2015, the conflict spanning across Yemen has resulted in massive casualties, a wave of internally displaced persons, substantial infrastructure damage, and hampered service delivery across both the economy and society. The business climate across Yemen has dramatically deteriorated as a result of the conflict, and businesses throughout the country experienced severe disruptions that for many firms constituted a force majeure situation, hindering their ability to either operate effectively or plan ahead for the future. Addressing these challenges requires substantial effort by the GoY and the international community to support the resilience of the private sector and prevent its further deterioration and losses. The loss of private sector wealth and activity of this magnitude is part and parcel to the food insecurity, poverty, public health issues, and defunct service provision that plagues the war-fatigued population. As such, both in the future post-conflict setting and at present, engaging and revitalizing the Yemeni private sector is a crucial and indispensable step towards the successful reconstruction and recovery of Yemen, and the long-term well-being of the population. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Morocco: A Second Generation of Reforms - Boosting Private Sector Growth, Job Creation and Skills Upgrading
(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-06-01)Morocco has steered significant resources towards large investments in economic sectors identified as strategic to growth, and for increased productivity and value addition. Despite Morocco’s strikingly high investment rate, one of the highest in the world at an average of thirty-four percent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually since the mid-2000s, the returns in economic growth, job creation and productivity, have been disappointing. The Moroccan economy has performed particularly poorly in terms of job creation. A more vibrant private sector is needed to create more jobs. This CPSD identifies policy recommendations and investment opportunities that would foster job creation by the formal private sector and improve labor supply in skills that would anchor Morocco as an emerging economy, to continue its path of growth, and to move into higher value-added and innovative sectors. -
Publication
Towards a Private Sector led Growth Model: Bosnia and Herzegovina Innovation and Entrepreneurship Assessment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04-20)The growth landscape of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is undermined by adverse productivity developments and weak private sector development. BiH is still finding a pathway to rebalance its current public sector-led growth model to a private sector-led one. In this light, enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship (I and E) is a key priority for BiH. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the current I and E landscape in BiH and offers a roadmap for innovation policy reforms. It showcases current I and E outcomes in BiH and provides analysis of whether current support policies and programs in BiH (including public budget allocations) address existing market failures. The report concludes that recent policy measures have not effectively addressed BiH's needs for supporting I and E, specifically in terms of access to skills, ease of business regulations, and predictability of business environment. To this end, this report offers a roadmap for policy reforms as well as suggestions for pilot programs. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Ethiopia: Sustaining Progress Towards Industrialization
(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-03-20)Ethiopia has made impressive strides along its developmental path. Job creation is now the critical development challenge, raising the importance of the private sector agenda. After more than a decade of sustained public sector-led growth, the government is revising its growth strategy to allow for a much greater role for the private sector in driving growth and job creation. Broadening the base for job creation beyond light manufacturing toward a wider range of high productivity agricultural and services activities will help to overcome the uneven spatial distribution of manufacturing jobs across the country. Ethiopia has a number of advantages that it can leverage to attract the investment needed for job creation. These include rapidly improving transport and energy infrastructure, low labor costs, a large and growing domestic market, cheap power, an ideal climate, and preferential market access to the European Union, the United States, and other major markets. The purpose of the Ethiopia country private sector diagnostic (CPSD) is to support the transition to a private sector- driven growth model that advances the country’s development objectives and, in particular, delivers the necessary jobs. It identifies investment opportunities that can materialize in the short term, and the reforms that are needed to enable these opportunities to emerge. It also discusses how specific actions by the public sector, in collaboration with the private sector, in filling gaps in public investment, reforming business regulations and trade policy, addressing market failures, and enhancing the efficiency of key backbone services and sectors, while tackling gender inequalities, can fully unleash the potential of private sector investment. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Nepal: Country Private Sector Diagnostic
(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2018-11)The purpose of this Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) is to assess opportunities and constraints holding back private sector growth. It conducts a diagnostic of the main cross-cutting constraints to private sector competitiveness and growth through data analysis, synthesis of existing research and stakeholder consultations. This exercise also identifies sectors that could play a key role in enabling Nepal’s growth, by either enabling other sectors or capitalizing on Nepal’s inherent comparative advantage to tap global markets. Sector deep dives help identify private sector constraints specific to these sectors, including sector-specific manifestations of cross-cutting constraints. The CPSD analysis finally identifies key recommendations on policy reforms and investments in public goods (including public-private partnerships) that could enable growth of a competitive private sector. -
Publication
Poland Structural Policies for Competitiveness: Position Paper for Regulatory Policy
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-01)Regulatory policy is essential for economic growth and social welfare. Regulations are the rules set by the state to govern the daily life of citizens and businesses. Regulatory policy, the prerogative to establish these rules, is a key lever of state power. Poland has made progress in improving the quality of its regulatory processes, but important challenges remain. High quality regulations are essential for a sound legal framework based on certitude, legality, and transparency. The strategy for responsible development (SRD) recognizes the importance of regulation to stimulate economic activity in Poland. As the main policy document for economic transformation, the SRD identifies shortcomings in the current development model and makes proposals on how to address them. The strategy offers a good starting point to identify areas in which the World Bank could engage with the Government of Poland to further support the efforts to strengthen a sound regulatory environment for business. This position paper aims at: (i) assessing some of the current efforts made by the Government of Poland in terms of regulatory policy, particularly affecting business; and (ii) identifying areas of potential engagement between the World Bank and the Government of Poland. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Ghana: Country Private Sector Diagnostic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11)The objective of the Ghana Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) is to identify the main opportunities for the private sector that will have a strong development impact in Ghana and to highlight the key constraints (both cross-cutting and sector-specific) hampering private sector growth. The CPSD consists of a systematic assessment of all of Ghana’s economic sectors along two dimensions: (a) desirability: how private investments in these sectors could help Ghana to address its development challenges; and (b) expected feasibility: how the constraints standing in the way could be removed. This sector scan led to identification seven priority sectors, of which, three were selected to conduct deep dive studies: namely agribusiness, ICT and education.Four main opportunities exist for the private sector to make a major contribution by creating markets in Ghana. First, the private sector can help to develop new high-value export markets, such as horticulture and ICT-enabled services, in which Ghana is already well positioned. Second, the private sector can leverage ICT to improve the performance of Ghana’s most important sectors, including for improving government activities and services. Third, the private sector can help to promote efficiency and innovation in the key social sectors of education and health. Fourth, the private sector can play an important role in helping to address the main cross-cutting constraints, such as facilitating trade, providing competitive green energy, opening rural land markets, developing technical skills, and financing promising small and medium enterprises (SMEs).There are fewer opportunities for transformative private sector investments in the other sectors (mining, tourism, retail, construction, water and sanitation, and manufacturing).Ghana can seize these opportunities through a mix of public and private interventions:The government should pursue essential economic reforms to resolve the energy crisis by reforming the regulatory framework for electricity tariffs; facilitating trade, through customs reforms and the Ghana Community Network Systems;These reforms would pave the way for the private sector to invest in projects with a high development impact, including through large firms. Such opportunities already exist in Ghana in the three priority sectors of ICT, agribusiness and education that are reviewed in this report.The government should also consider supporting the entry of ‘pioneer’ investors, which are often in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI).Supporting promising SMEs will also be critical, especially during their acceleration phase.This could be achieved through a combination of public financing and capacity building, technical support adapted to the sector in which they operate, and risk-sharing and mezzanine finance facilities. Similar to the pioneer investors, such support should be provided in an inclusive, transparent and competitive manner. Examples of promising SMEs were found in all three deep-dive sectors. -
Publication
Creating Markets in Kazakhstan: Country Private Sector Diagnostic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11)The first section identifies the overlaps between Kazakhstan's development objectives and the goals of IFC's new strategy of creating markets for the private sector. Kazakhstan's development objectives are to increase diversification, employment, and productivity. These are based on the government's 2030 Strategy and 2020 Plan, as well as World Bank Group (WBG) country assessments. Operationalizing the IFC 3.0 strategy requires identifying the markets with the greatest potential to help meet these objectives. The approach amounts to: (a) identifying those sectors with the greatest market potential which, if realized, would have the greatest impact on development objectives; (b) providing an assessment of what is preventing the realization of market potential; and (c) indicating the IFC and WB activities that should be the top priorities to help meet this double bottom-line of development impact and market creation. The assessment in the second section indicates that the sectors with the greatest unrealized development and market potential are food-grains, meat and poultry, and cross-Kazakhstan transport and logistics. The market potential assessment relies on quantitative tools (multiplier models, product space and competitiveness benchmarking), expert interviews and a survey of policy reports. The assessment in the second section indicates that the sectors with the greatest unrealized development and market potential are food-grains, meat and poultry, and cross-Kazakhstan transport and logistics. The market potential assessment relies on quantitative tools (multiplier models, product space and competitiveness benchmarking), expert interviews and a survey of policy reports. The last section summarizes the priority horizontal reforms, sector-specific policies, and promising sectors with the potential for expansion and greater firm entry. The first part of this section is intended to inform the high-level dialogue between WBG management and Kazakhstani authorities. The second part is essentially the sector-wide measures without which private sector investments will not be forthcoming, recognizing that the aim is to create markets and expand private sector development. The third part identifies promising areas where private sector actors could play a catalytic role, recognizing the ease of playing such roles differs by sector: it is greatest for grains, somewhat less for meat, and least for transport and logistics.