Investment Climate

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The World Bank Group is pleased to present website updates and recent publications on investment climate topics:
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Highlights
Director's Note New World Bank Group Report Finds over 80 percent of Investment Promotion Agencies Efforts Falling Short Lao Embraces Reforms Measuring the Impact of Investment Climate Reform Unleashing More Than $3 Trillion in Financing in China through Secured Transactions Reform Vietnam Streamlines Business Regulations

Recent publications
>> Global Investment Promotion Best

Director's Note
This issue looks at our new framework to measure the development impact of investment climate reforms and how it can help in setting priorities and targeting resources. The Bank Group, with strong donor support, helps developing countries implement improvements to policies, laws, regulations, and procedures affecting businesses. We expect that assessing the impact of our work more systematically will change the way we do business, helping us to redeploy resources from low- to highimpact work. A recent evaluation of the China secured transactions project, for example, indicated that nearly 70,000 Chinese SMEs have accessed an estimated $1 trillion of financing secured by accounts receivable following changes to the secured transactions legal framework and the introduction of an electronic registry for accounts receivable. In Romania, our support helped enact legislative amendments that provide for expedited formal bankruptcy cases and facilitate the use of out-of-court restructuring mechanisms, potentially impacting some 16,000 companies and $5.6 billion worth of non-performing loans. On the knowledge management front: the recently released Global Investment Promotion Best Practices 2012 (GIPB 2012) report, which tracks the performance of national investment promotion agencies in 189 economies in responding to information requests from potential investors, found that over 60% of agencies implementing best practices and investment promotion agencies in two regions, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, showed improvements in both inquiryhandling and website performance relative to the GIPB 2009 results, illustrating that even in difficult circumstances good investor facilitation is possible. Regards, Marialisa

Practices 2012
>> More publications

Upcoming publications
>> Innovative Solutions for Business

Registration Reforms
>> Viewpoint Note: The Impact of

Competition Policy Reforms

-------------------------------Notable Blog Posts

>>

Want to sell your country to investors? Answer the phone! By Robert Whyte

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Do the economics of Corporate Social Responsibility matter for Private Sector Interventions? By Markus Kitzmuller

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Of One Mind? Closer Coordination of Monetary Policy and Financial Regulation By Ian Dalton

-------------------------------Investment Climate in the News

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Global: World Bank Group's Global Investment Promotion Best practices 2012 report (GIPB 2012) launched

>> Nepal: WBG Conducts Workshop on

Tax Compliance Cost Survey

>> More Investment Climate in the News

New World Bank Group Report Finds over 80 percent of Investment Promotion Agencies Efforts Falling Short

file:///O|/CIC (Investment Climate)/CICKM (Knowledge Management)/Communications/IC Newsletter/2012/IClimate May_June Donor.htm[11/6/2012 2:13:31 PM]

Investment Climate Change

-------------------------------What's new on the website

>> The Resilience of Haiti's Private

The Global Investment Promotion Best Practices 2012 assesses 189 economies responsiveness to investors and finds that investment promotion agencies are less responsive to direct investor inquiries than they were three years ago. In the areas of inquiry-handling and website performance, two regions showed improvement over the past two yearsthe Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sector
>> Curbing Greenhouse Gases in Jakarta >> Liberia- A Post-conflict Economy on

the Mend

>>

Read full story

Lao Embraces Reforms

The World Bank Group has been working with the government and private sector in Laos to improve regulations related to taxes and investment, and to set up a framework for sustained dialogue between the public and private sectors.

>> >>

Watch slideshow See Business Environment Snapshot of Lao PDR

Measuring the Impact of Investment Climate Reform

A multi-donor Bank Group program addresses client and donor interest in deploying measures of development impact to help set priorities and target resources for investment climate reforms. In March, the United Kingdom joined the United States to support the joint IFC-World Bank initiative implemented by the Investment Climate Department, building on a project launched in 2010.

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Read full story

Unleashing More Than $3 Trillion in Financing in China through Secured Transactions Reform

Independent Evaluator Confirms Remarkable Efficiency of World Bank Group Reform in Increasing SME Lendings.

>> >>

Read full story See Business Environment Snapshot of China

Vietnam Streamlines Business Regulations

These improvements make it easier to do business, creating jobs and opening up investment opportunities in the country.

>> >>

Watch Video See Business Environment Snapshot of Vietnam

The World Bank Group is grateful for its development partners, especially through the FIAS multi-donor investment climate program, for their financial and operational support and collaboration. Submit feedback here. If you wish to stop receiving our newsletter, please send a blank email to wbginvestclimate@worldbank.org with 'UN-SUBSCRIBE' followed by your email address in the Subject line.

file:///O|/CIC (Investment Climate)/CICKM (Knowledge Management)/Communications/IC Newsletter/2012/IClimate May_June Donor.htm[11/6/2012 2:13:31 PM]

Investment Climate Change

Investment Climate Department of the World Bank Group l June 2012 Edition

file:///O|/CIC (Investment Climate)/CICKM (Knowledge Management)/Communications/IC Newsletter/2012/IClimate May_June Donor.htm[11/6/2012 2:13:31 PM]