"Many developing countries operate geographically delineated economic areas in the form of export processing zones, special industrial zones, or free trade zones. This paper provides an overview of the application of World Trade Organization disciplines to incentive programs typically employed...

In 1995, Moldova introduced free economic zone (FEZ) legislation with the aim of accelerating socioeconomic development by attracting domestic and foreign investment, promoting exports, and creating employment. Since then, seven free economic zones offering tax and customs benefits have been...

This global report examines the opportunity for special economic zones to promote women's economic empowerment and boost zone and enterprise competitiveness in developing countries. The research covers Bangladesh, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, Jordan, Kenya, and the Philippines. The...

The Central America region is a small market. The region contains around 43 million inhabitants (0.6 percent of total world population) who generate around 0.25 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While the region has successfully embarked on a regional integration agenda and...

"In many developing countries, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 will require significant increases in expenditures on social services and in foreign assistance. It will also require careful planning of the sector allocation and sequencing of public spending. Especially...

The effects of the global economic slowdown on peoples' employment and earnings are at the core of its social impacts, manifested largely through increased job uncertainties and reduced worker earnings in crisis-affected sectors, as opposed to widespread open unemployment. The global economic...

As developing economies continue to mature and enter the next phase of reforms, labor market issues and key policy instruments such as the minimum wage increasingly come to the forefront. Increased globalization and wider competition compel countries to make labor markets more flexible so as not...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a community of more than 600 million people living in ten countries in one of the most dynamic regions of the world. Consistent with this, ASEAN's share of world GDP and world trade has sharply increased over the past decades. In 2003,...

This report is part of a project being jointly conducted by the World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat, and United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). It aims to...