Private Sector Development, Privatization, and Industrial Policy

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  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Kazakhstan: Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) World Bank Group
    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.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Ghana: Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) World Bank Group
    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
    Looking Beyond the Horizon: A Case Study of PVH’s Commitment in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Industrial Park
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06) Mihretu, Mamo; Llobet, Gabriela
    The story of how the PVH Corp. (referred to throughout this document as PVH) came to leada group of its top suppliers to build factories and a fabric mill in Ethiopia’s Hawassa IndustrialPark (HIP) is the study of a strong collaboration between a private company looking to optimizeits business model and a government aiming to transform its economy through global strategic repositioning. The success of this story hinges upon the intersection of their goals and a shared vision of development that includes a strong commitment to social and environmental goals.PVH was motivated to invest in Ethiopia to respond to shifts in the global apparel sector, its growing desire to retool its business model and to address its concerns about compliance with social and environmental standards in its traditional sourcing locations. PVH had decided to rethink its business model and to look beyond the horizon towards a new region in which tolocate its manufacturing base. To have better oversight and enforcement, PVH moved to adopta fully integrated vertical supply chain, including direct investment in one of the manufacturingfacilities.Key to Ethiopia’s success in attracting this important investor was the government’s ability and willingness to strategically evaluate its foreign direct investment (FDI) needs and strategy and to take steps to evolve into an attractive location for higher value-added export-oriented investment.This case study explains a private investor’s site selection process. It assesses the elements PVH prioritized when deciding to commit to Ethiopia, and specifically to HIP. The case study further assesses the government of Ethiopia’s strategy, level of readiness, interest, and commitment, and sets out some key challenges that lie ahead for this partnership. The case study is structured in ten sections. Section second offers a brief background on the textile and apparel industry, including an explanation of its value chain. It provides a brief corporate profile of PVH and its current global footprint and business model. Section third describes the site selection process: PVH´s initial explorations in Africa, its consideration of several African countries, and its initial conversations and negotiations with Ethiopian authorities. Section fourth discusses the Ethiopian government’s strategy to attract and expand export-oriented investments, including efforts to bolster the country’s competitiveness. This section attempts to offer some explanation why Ethiopia was the right fit at the right time and its level of readiness to land such an investment. It provides a brief profile of PVH’s Africa point of entry, the HIP. Section sixth covers the challenges that lie ahead for this-project---potential setbacks that will affect not only the consolidation and growth of the textiles and apparel industry in Ethiopia, but also the government’s vision of becoming the “manufacturing powerhouse of Africa.” Section eighth concludes with some key lessons from PVH’s decision to invest in Ethiopia. Such lessons may be relevant to countries or regions interested inattracting FDI and may be of particular interest to other African countries in their quest to attract major investments in the textile and apparel sector.
  • Publication
    Towards Privilege-Resistant Economic Policies in MENA: Shielding Policies from Privileges and Discretion
    (Washington, DC, 2017-06) World Bank
    Unemployment rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are among the highest in the world, especially for young graduates. Policy recommendations to date in the field of governance for private sector policymaking have been too general and too removed from concrete, actionable policy outcomes. This report presents, for the first time to fill this policy and operational gap by answering the following question: what good governance features should be instilled in the design of economic policies and institutions to help shield them from capture, discretion, and arbitrary implementation? The report presents an innovative conceptual framework that encapsulates the governance features that can shield policies from capture, discretion, and arbitrary enforcement that limits competition. Based on this framework, a check-list of policy features in a wide range of policy areas relevant to private sector development policy is presented, notably in terms of: (i) the process of policy-making (ex-ante); (ii) the actual policies, regulations, and their implementation (for example, business regulations, procurement, financing, trade); and (iii) competition policy and other attributes like open-business and transparency measures that help identify, and prevent or deter anti-competitive market behavior and outcomes (ex-post). The report benchmarks eight countries along the framework and checklist of indicators, pointing, for each country, to policy gaps and poor governance features that make these countries prone to capture and discretion. The report offers a menu of operational and technical entry-points to engage the capture agenda in a concrete way, one that may be more politically tractable in some of the client countries.
  • Publication
    Job Creation in the Private Sector: An Exploratory Assessment of Patterns and Determinants at the Macro, Sector, and Firm Levels
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017) Ferro, Esteban; Farole, Thomas; Michel Gutierrez, Veronica
    Why do some countries create more jobs than others? To consider this question, in this paper we focus on one of the most basic relationships, between growth and employment. In practice, the private sector responds very differently to growth (and decline) across countries. Understanding the patterns and drivers of private sector decisions to expand and shed jobs may be important to guide policy approaches for job creation. This paper analyzes the output-employment relationship in the context of business cycles at three levels: the macro-economy; industry (in manufacturing); and firms. The results highlight major differences in private sector job creation responsiveness to growth across stages of development and economic structures, but a critical finding is that economies (and firms) where formal sector job creation was more responsive to growth cycles generated more jobs overall. In addition, results from both the macro analysis and the sectoral analysis suggests significant complementarity between capital and labor. Finally, the findings may help to frame a broad policy agenda for job creation, including: macro-economic fundamentals, responsive labor markets, access to finance, competition, and a facilitative business regulatory environment. These are not surprising, but nevertheless frame a set of issues that could be explored in further research.