The World Bank Group's Women, Business and the Law examines laws and regulations affecting women's prospects as entrepreneurs and employees across 187 economies. Its goal is to inform policy discussions on how to remove legal restrictions on women and promote research on how to improve women's...

Vietnam's on-going reform program places emphasis on improving the efficiency of public investment in order to boost the country's economic performance, which remains highly dependent on factor accumulation. Despite the improvements introduced by the government in recent years, including the...

Myanmar's economy is slowly picking up speed and regaining stability after a volatile 2018. Despite a challenging global environment, Myanmar's economic growth is expected to rise to 6.5 percent in 2018/19 from 6.4 percent in the Transition Period1 supported by strong performance in the...

The external environment has deteriorated during the first half of 2019, and downside riskspredominate in the near-term. Global GDP growth is projected to decline to 2.6 percent in 2019 from 3 percent in 2018, reflecting broad-based weakness in advanced economies and major Emerging Market and...

After a weak performance in the first half of 2019, helped by monetary easing, faster public spending and some one-off effects, economic growth in Russia picked up in the third quarter at 1.7 percent, y/y. Consequently, our 2019 forecast has been revised upwards to 1.2 percent (from its previous...

This note looks at the experience countries have had in introducing reforms that improved the business environment. Instead of examining what was done (that is, the content of reforms), the focus is placed on how reform programs came to be successful. The note aims to provide an overview of...

Economic conditions in China have changed dramatically over the past six months. The COVID-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it have triggered a combined demand and supply shock. The report projects that economic growth in China will slow sharply to 1.6 percent this year-marking the...

The new government is taking office at the time when Mongolia and the world is faced with an unprecedented public health and economic crisis. The government is confronted with the difficult task of stabilizing the economy while laying the foundation for a sustainable recovery. In the short run,...