Publication: Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021: Boosting Foreign Direct Investment
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2021-11
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2021-11
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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.
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“World Bank. 2021. Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021: Boosting Foreign Direct Investment. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36900 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11)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. 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Employers in Kosovo note the poor quality of the education system and the limited practical and professional skills students acquire.Publication Kosovo Country Economic Memorandum, November 2021(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11)To boost economic growth and foster sustained formal job creation in Kosovo, igniting firm productivity is crucial. Based on detailed micro-data, this note examines the characteristics and recent evolution of firms in Kosovo, with particular attention to firm productivity. For the last decade, the landscape of firms in Kosovo has been dominated by microenterprises with low productivity, employment, and survival rates. Firm creation and growth,small firm density, average size, and the likelihood of survival are all low, which implies that there are severe constraints on private sector development. Kosovo’s firms are only tenuously linked to global markets and the country is lagging in the share of female-run companies. Positive and rising net job creation in 2015-18 was driven by higher formalization of jobs and the increasing size of incumbent firms, especially young small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Kosovo needs a multidimensional policy strategy to foster growth in firm productivity. Based on the study findings and the results of other notes prepared for Kosovo’s country economic memorandum (CEM), this note presents a policy strategy that targets the three main sources of firm productivity growth: (1) firm productivity (the within component); (2) market reallocation (the between component); and (3) firm dynamics (entry and exit). Section one examines the characteristics and recent dynamics of Kosovar firms. Section two analyzes the drivers and evolution of productivity, with emphasis on the links between productivity and access to credit. It also assesses the main barriers to productivity growth. Section three sheds light on how Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected Kosovar firms. Section four concludes by discussing tentative policy implications of the analysis.
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