The Eliminating Barriers to Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Sri Lanka Program supports the attainment of the GoSL’s Vision 2025 through the provision of analytical and advisory services to identify and implement a wide range of priority reforms necessary to unleash the trade and competitiveness potential for inclusive and sustainable growth in Sri Lanka.
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Recent literature has shown evidence of positive contributions of export promotion agencies around the world in raising exports, through the intensive and extensive margins of trade.
... See More + The number of export promotion agencies has increased substantially over the past two decades, and most of them focus on assisting exporters in understanding and finding markets for their products. This paper describes the characteristics of export promotion agencies around the world, using a novel database from the World Bank, in collaboration with the International Trade Center in Geneva, covering 2005-10. In addition, it presents a short summary of the literature on the impacts of export promotion agencies.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8470 JUN 07, 2018
Vargas Da Cruz,Marcio Jose; Lederman,Daniel; Zoratto,Laura De CastroDisclosed
The empirical case for trade as an engine of growth has now been established on solid empirical grounds. There has been a protracted controversy in the literature on the econometrics of trade and growth.
... See More + Nonetheless, most recent estimates suggest that a major episode of liberalization provides a permanent boost in growth on the order of 1 to 2 percent. Concomitantly, and largely on practical grounds, most low- and middle-income countries, with very few exceptions, have substantially lowered their trade barriers, eliminating the most egregious forms of trade protection (tariff peaks, quantitative restrictions, and other command-and-control instruments). Yet, by all accounts, trade costs remain high. Using an approach that consists of inverting the gravity equation and inferring trade costs from the relative size of external versus internal trade, Arvis and others (2013) and Novy (2013) show that trade costs have failed to fall as much for low-income countries as they have for others, reinforcing their economic ‘remoteness.’ Several multilateral initiatives have been set up to help low- and middle-income countries low-income ones, to integrate better in world trade. For instance, the Aid-for-Trade initiative was launched in 2005 to help low-income countries to cope with their Uruguay Round commitments, which were, in turn, expected to improve their ability to draw benefits from World Trade Organization (WTO) membership. More recently, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) signed in December 2013 in Bali and entered into force in February 2017, was designed to help low and middle-income countries to focus on reducing non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade such as border delays, cumbersome regulations, and so on. The TFA is expected to focus governments’ attention on the various aspects of trade facilitation, including some that go beyond the written mandate of the TFA. Some of those aspects are technical issues of border management, such as reducing delays, computerizing customs transactions, and streamlining verification and payment procedures. Some others are more genuinely economic, such as streamlining NTBs and improving regulatory design through cost-benefit analysis. This volume discusses some of the analytical methods that can be used to accompany this process. Chapter two discusses the broad economic rationale for improving the design of NTMs. Chapter three illustrates the main forms of quantifying NTMs and their effects, including inventory approaches, price-based approaches, and quantity-based approaches. It also proposes a new analytical and measurable concept of regulatory distance to help in guiding deep integration efforts at the regional level. Chapter four discusses the effects of NTMs on household expenditures, poverty, and firm competitiveness. Chapter five illustrates how analysis of NTMs can be used to inform policy advice. Chapter six concludes.
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Argentina needs to lift and stabilize economic growth to create more and better jobs while reigniting productivity to bring income closer to that of more advanced economies.
... See More + Integration into global markets provides opportunities to unleash the country’s growth and higher productivity potential by creating conditions and incentives for markets to function better and resources to be used more efficiently. In addition, further integration into the world economy can help deliver inclusive growth, as consumers will gain from the availability of foreign goods and services, greater variety, and prices that are more competitive, while small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can have more opportunities to expand their activities. The government has taken steps to restructure and strengthen its institutions for investment promotion and competition policy.
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The National Strategy for Development of Statistics Implementation Support Project aims to improve the capacity of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to produce quality core statistics and make them accessible in a timely manner to policy makers and the public.
... See More + There are five components to the project, the first component being improving the coordination and management of statistical activities. Enhanced coordination (subcomponent A.1) will help reduce redundancies and ensure that data collected by other agencies are in line with international standards. The activities under subcomponent A.2 aim to ensure sustainable improvements in the management functions of the BBS. The Finance, Administration, and Management Information System Wing of the BBS will take the lead for Component A and coordinate with the other Wings as necessary. The second component is the developing human resources and ICT infrastructure to produce and manage data. The project will strengthen the role of the Statistical Staff Training Institute of the BBS and develop a training policy to deliver systematic, rather than ad hoc, training for BBS staff (subcomponent B.1). As highlighted in the NSDS, improvements in ICT (subcomponent B.2) are central to strengthen the functioning of local offices, improve quality in data collection, and for data sharing efforts through the website. The third component is the improving the coverage and quality of core statistics required for policy making. This component aims to improve the design, implementation, and information generated by high priority, core statistical operations identified in the NSDS. The core statistical operations that are expected to be improved include national accounts, price statistics, labor and industry statistics, social statistics, and agricultural statistics. The fourth component is the promoting and strengthening access to and the use of official statistics. It is important, to make users aware of statistics, both in terms of what is available and its use. To enable this, it is critical to produce statistics of good quality, release them on time, and with proper explanations of methods and procedures ‐ metadata. Such activities will be supported by this component. The Computer Wing of the BBS will take the lead for Component D and coordinate with the other Wings as necessary. Finally, the fifth component is the project management.
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Tariff modernization will help Bangladesh diversify its export basket. Tariff modernization is at the crux of input competitiveness for efficient manufacturing given that more than ninety percent of the raw material for exportable goods are imported in Bangladesh and the other export incentives like bonded warehouse facilities are not accessible to firms other than Ready Made Garments and a few deemed exporters.
... See More + Duty drawback system is also designed to discourage traders from claiming it in the first place and cash incentives can only be used as a temporary measure.Tariffs serve a dual purpose of revenue-generation and protection. Efficient collection of import tax affects revenue mobilization, trade facilitation and overall economic performance. If set correctly, tariffs play a dual role of generating revenue from imports and providing protection for domestic industries. Bangladesh has made significant progress in tariff modernization, but there is room for improvement. Trade protection through tariffs not only reduces the competitiveness of domestic firms, but studies show it also impacts consumer welfare. To address these issues, policy recommendations for short term and long term are provided in this report.
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Preferential trade agreements have boomed in recent years and extended their reach well beyond tariff reduction, to cover policy areas such as investment, competition, and intellectual property rights.
... See More + This paper uses new information on the content of preferential trade agreements to examine the trade effects of deep agreements and revisit the classic Vinerian question of trade creation and trade diversion. The results indicate that deep agreements lead to more trade creation and less trade diversion than shallow agreements. Furthermore, some provisions of deep agreements have a public good aspect and increase trade also with non-members.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8206 SEP 27, 2017
In Vietnam, sustained high rates of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) averaging 7.2 percent per year over the past 20 years have resulted in higher demand for freight transport.
... See More + As Vietnam looks to continue on a path of sustained economic growth, it faces the challenge of better aligning demand and supply of logistics services and improving the overall efficiency of its freight transport system. Given the existence of capacity constraints in the country's road network and the increasingly costly environmental impact of road use for freight movements, it is desirable for Vietnam to develop and maintain viable, competitive alternatives to road freight transport. A more intense use of waterborne freight transport can be a particularly effective way of both promoting growth and reducing emissions. The report has three objectives. The first is to identify targeted policy and infrastructure interventions in inland waterway transport (IWT) and coastal shipping that can enhance the competitiveness and environmental sustainability characteristics of Vietnam's freight transport system. The second objective of the report is to estimate the economic benefits and costs associated with the interventions identified, and to use that information to produce a prioritized list of evaluated recommendations for implementation. Finally, the report seeks to inform interested stakeholders, including public sector authorities, the shipper and carrier community, donors, academia, and the general public about the current status, composition, and key challenges and opportunities facing Vietnam's domestic waterborne transport sector. The report's scope comprises the three most important sources of freight activity in Vietnam, namely, road, IWT, and coastal shipping transportation. This report is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction; chapter two gives stock taking of current developments and expected trends in IWT and coastal shipping from the perspective of market demand; and market supply is discussed in chapter three. Chapter four assesses, on an indicative basis, the environmental implications of transport trends. Chapter five defines and assesses the main bottlenecks impacting the development of inland and coastal waterborne transport. A preliminary strategy for developing IWT and coastal shipping is presented in chapter six. A set of specific IWT and coastal shipping interventions informed by the latter analysis, are developed and evaluated in chapter seven.
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Publication 83030 SEP 13, 2017
Blancas Mendivil,Luis C.; El-Hifnawi, M. BaherVietnamese,
EnglishDisclosed
The short-term impact of Brexit on goods exports is assessed using the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index of the United Kingdom's major trading partners.
... See More + The analysis shows that in the short run, leaving the European Union may cause the United Kingdom's exports to the European Union to decrease by 2 percent, and the prospect of a major trade collapse post-Brexit is unlikely. This is because the European Union's Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs are higher on products that are less responsive to tariffs, and lower on products that are more responsive to tariffs.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8195 SEP 13, 2017
Preferential trade agreements today are more numerous and deeper than they were a quarter century ago. Do deep agreements promote countries' integration into global value chains?
... See More + What are the economic mechanisms? How do countries choose their trade agreement partners? Would the undoing of deep agreements disrupt global value chains? What is the outlook for trade agreements and global value chains going forward? This paper reviews the small but growing literature on the role of deep agreements as the institutional underpinnings of global value chains. It discusses the available evidence and theoretical arguments, providing directions for future research in this area.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8190 SEP 11, 2017
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.
... See More + 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.
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Ratings for the Trade Development Support Program Project for Cambodia were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, risk to development outcome was moderate, Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and Grantee performance was moderately satisfactory.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: supporting a sector-wide approach (SWAp) can yield benefits to promote integrated policy-making, notably in trade policy, but the underlying institutional framework needs to be solid. Adopting a programmatic approach should not come at the expense of selectivity and prioritization of activities for support. To improve the trade environment, combining activities that yield short and medium-term results and activities with direct and indirect impacts is a favorable option. Developing institutional capacity takes time and is a challenging task, but is a worthy objective in low-capacity environments, such as Cambodia.
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Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR1262 MAY 03, 2017
Trade played a pivotal role during the transition of many countries in Europe and Central Asia to market economies. It forced a more efficient use of resourced and supported adoption of new technologies.
... See More + Going forward, trade will again be crucial as countries adjust to new specialization patterns in the world. The adjustment requires not merely tweaking of trade policies, but rather a rethinking of how labor markets and capital markets are organized.
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