Trade

What’s in Kyrgyzstan’s future?

The problem with the World Bank’s 20th anniversary in Kyrgyzstan last November was that everybody else’s party had happened already.

There has been a blur of speeches, gala concerts, jazz bands, canapés, toasts and traditional performances as one embassy after another feted twenty years of partnership with the Kyrgyz Republic. The same guests, speeches, and – truth be told - probably the same canapés.

We had to do something different. So, as we celebrated the last 20 years of our work in Kyrgyzstan (which have been quite good), we toasted the next 20 years as well.

Read the first of this two-part blog post here.

The idea of a peer learning network for tax administrators came when I realized that tax authorities in different countries had many of the same questions: How do we initiate risk management? How are other countries dealing with compliance issues? How do countries ensure speedy VAT refunds and yet prevent fraudulent claims? And so on.

So why not get the tax officials from different countries together and provide a platform to discuss their challenges, experiences and innovative ways of solving problems. Mix them with a dose of tax experts from developed tax systems, et voila! That’s how TAXGIP (Tax Administrators eXchange for Global Innovative Practices) was born – it provides opportunities to exchange knowledge and good practices, and share experiences.

Spare a thought for the economist.

While in the past, people might have resorted to reading tea leaves to figure out what their future has in store for them, these days, at least on economic matters, people turn to the next available economist. But while economists are great at analyzing the past, predicting the future is still a complicated task.

In order to come up with projections, economists look at data. Now, it turns out that economists are often making long-term assessments based on the latest news. Take a look at these growth projections for ten years ahead for Russia, based on polls of economists conducted by Consensus Economics, along with actual growth in the year of the projections (Figure 1). Clearly, while long-term projections are less volatile, the two are correlated – the better the present the better the future, and vice versa. In particular, long-term projections have noticeably nudged down since the crisis.

Figure 1: Actual Growth and 10-Years Ahead Growth

Projections for Russia (percent), 2004 to 2012

With a double dip recession––after just two years of sluggish recovery––now taking hold across the Western Balkans it is time for policy makers to begin looking at ways the ongoing financial crisis can be leveraged to bring about lasting fiscal reform in these countries. After just two years of sluggish recovery, these countries as a group––Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia––are experiencing a drop in real GDP by 0.6 percent and it is now clear that the road to recovery in 2013 will be arduous.

Read this post in Français

To put nature at the heart of economic decisions, government, the private sector & the conservation community must reach across the aisle.

Look around the world, and you’ll see abundant reasons to worry about nature and its capacity to sustain us. Over 60 percent of ecosystems are in worse shape now than 50 years ago; 85 percent of ocean fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted; half of all wetlands have been destroyed since 1900; and climate change is changing everything.

But at the same time, if you look carefully, there are reasons for cautious optimism.

Read this post in Français, Español

Earth Summit 1992. UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras
Photo: The scene at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the conference adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Agenda 21 programme of action, among other actions. UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras.

This week, the city of Rio de Janeiro will become a global stage, home to tens of thousands of people attending the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

Rio+ 20 is an important global stage upon which those committed to action from government, the private sector, and society can show how they plan to demonstrate that we can accelerate progress, if we change the way we grow.

We need a different kind of growth, a greener and more inclusive growth. We think it is affordable with help to those for whom upfront costs may be prohibitive. We think we should be able to value natural resources differently within our economic model. We think that with the right data and evidence we can avoid the irreversible costs of making wrong decisions now. And we can have economic systems that are much more efficient.

Obiageli Ezekwesili chairs the seminar: Can Africa Trade with Africa? (Photo: Arne Hoel, The World Bank)

I chaired a very lively seminar on Friday afternoon that focused on the question, “Can Africa Trade with Africa?” The answer was a resounding yes.

Today, there is strong consensus among African leaders that regional integration is indispensable to unlock economies of scale and sharpen competitiveness. And promoting intra-African trade has emerged as a top priority, in recognition that the African market of one billion consumers can be a powerful engine for growth and employment.

Yet despite the introduction of free trade areas, customs unions, and common markets within the Region, the level of intra-African trade remains among the lowest in the world -- only about 10% of African trade is within the continent, compared to about 40% in North America and about 60% in Western Europe.

In a speech before students, faculty, policymakers and journalists at Georgetown University yesterday, World Bank President Robert Zoellick urged a sweeping new approach to development economics research. He said the Bank will change its research model to better access developing country experience through “Open Data, Open Knowledge, Open Solutions,” and make research more easily accessible to policymakers.

Authors: Emily Sinnott & John Nash

For Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), there has been a substantial shift from exporting commodities to advanced economies to trading instead with emerging economies. China, in particular, has become an important destination market, with its share of commodity exports having grown tenfold since 1990 (from 0.8 percent in 1990 to 10 percent of total commodity exports in 2008).

In our report on “Natural Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean: Beyond Booms and Busts?” we argue that one advantage of these changing trade patterns has been the important role that China’s demand for commodities played in the region’s economic rebound from the global crisis. While we are not alone in this view (see the CEPAL report on the drivers of the LAC recovery launched on September 2, 2010), there has been some anxiety in LAC that the region is going down the path of increased dependence on exports of raw materials with little value-added, while at the same time increasing its reliance on manufacturing imports from China.