Competitiveness in South East Europe 2021
A Policy Outlook
The future sustainable economic development and well-being of citizens in South East Europe depend on greater economic competitiveness. Reinforcing the region’s economic potential in a post-COVID-19 context requires a holistic, inclusive and growth‑oriented approach to policy making. Against the backdrop of enhanced European Union (EU) accession prospects and a drive towards deeper regional integration, the governments of the six Western Balkan (WB6) economies have demonstrated a renewed commitment to enacting policy reforms.
The third edition of Competitiveness in South East Europe: A Policy Outlook comprehensively assesses policy reforms in the WB6 economies across 16 policy dimensions crucial to their competitiveness. It leverages a highly participatory assessment process, which brought together the views of OECD experts, WB6 policy makers and local non-governmental stakeholders to create a balanced and realistic depiction of their performance. The report seeks to provide WB6 policy makers with a multi-dimensional benchmarking tool, enabling them to compare performance against regional peers as well as OECD good practices, and to design future policies based on rich evidence and actionable policy recommendations.
Economy-specific profiles complement the regional assessment for the first time in this edition of Competitiveness in South East Europe: A Policy Outlook, and provide each WB6 economy with an in-depth analysis of their competitive potential as well as policy recommendations tailored to their specific challenges to inform their structural economic reforms and sustainable development agenda.
Transport policy (Dimension 11)
The Western Balkans is a strategic region with excellent potential for transit traffic. A well-developed, sustainable, efficient, interoperable and integrated transport network could be a driver of closer co-operation with neighbouring European Union (EU) economies, leading to a single European and more competitive transport market. This chapter assesses the transport policy framework in the six Western Balkan (WB6) economies. It starts with a brief overview of the transport competitiveness of each economy, including performance on various global indicators, and then focuses on the three sub-dimensions that contribute to overall transport performance. The first sub-dimension, planning, measures the extent to which an orderly, coherent, consistent and transparent process is in place for developing transport policy and infrastructure. The second sub-dimension, governance and regulation, determines how well transport infrastructure and networks are regulated and operated, with a focus on rail, road, aviation, inland waterways and maritime transport. The third sub-dimension, sustainability, measures progress towards resource efficiency, environmental protection, reducing health impacts and increasing road safety. The chapter includes suggestions for enhancing policies in each of these sub-dimensions in order to improve transport performance and foster the competitiveness of the WB6 economies.
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