Romania identified competition as key to its effective economic development and is positioning the Competition Council to become more visible and effective. Improving Romania’s competitive environment will attract new firms, weed out inefficient ones, and enhance growth potential. An effective competition policy leads to success in the areas of Romania's domestic market efficiency, economic growth and European market integration. Following a comprehensive functional review of the Romanian Competition Council carried out by the World Bank in 2010, weaknesses, needs and priorities were identified. This book presents the results of the World Bank’s Advisory Services which were designed to provide solutions in the identified reform areas during 2012-2015. The Advisory Services provided an innovative delivery model that involved integrated expertise to (i) review the legal and regulatory framework for competition; (ii) offer advocacy support to streamline competition policy principles with other governmental policies and strengthen intergovernmental relations, especially with sectoral regulators (electricity and telecommunication) and the prosecutor's office; (iii) state-of-the-art capacity building to strengthen the Council’s staff’s technical knowledge; and (iv) optimize internal procedures to allow for improvements in institutional functioning using Enterprise Architecture methodology, which provided an in-depth institutional assessment and the development of a target business and information technology architecture. The Competition Council has started to apply some of the upgraded regulatory instruments. These, combined with the analytical skills in antitrust law and economics acquired with the World Bank support, have been already applied in recent antitrust cases, market inquiries meant to identify competition constraints in sectors that have great importance for consumers and infrastructure projects with state aid elements.
The report examines recent trends in Croatia's in trade, productivity, innovation performance and policy governance framework, to help identify priorities for the development of the country's Smart Specialization Strategy, which is an ex-ante conditionality for access to the EU's Structural and Investment Funds over the 2014-20 programming period.
Between 2003 and 2008, Croatia's rapid growth was fueled by rising domestic consumption, growingdeficits, an increased dependence on international finance. Such growth is unlikely to resume in the nearfuture, imposing social and economic costs. In this context, exports are critically important for Croatia'sdevelopment and employment generation. However, the country's trade performance has been lacklustersince the financial crisis. Export openness is lower than in countries with similar income levels, and thecountry's per capita GDP has stagnated. Low export diversification, weak competitiveness, and reducedtechnological sophistication help to explain stagnant exports. The fundamental problem is the failure torenew and transform the manufacturing base, which is linked to low rates of firm entry and exit. Anothermarker of a sluggish economy is the inadequate level of business research and development expenditure by Croatian enterprises and the weak governance framework for research and innovation,which is impairing the impact of research and development spending.In this context, Smart Specialization in Croatia aims to provide insights to the country's smart specializationstrategy (RIS3) by looking at the main constraints and opportunities that it faces in its economic progressalong three interrelated dimensions: trade, firm productivity, and research and development. The report also includes four casestudies to illustrate potential RIS3 approaches to spur research and innovation specialization at theregional level. The report's ultimate objective is to help develop a strategy that fosters productivitygrowth, job creation, and a more diversified export structure.
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