The purpose of this policy note is to present reform options on cabotage liberalization. The goal of cabotage liberalization is to help i) foster more competition in the domestic shipping industry, ii) reduce shipping cost, and iii) improve efficiency, maritime services, and safety standards....

This Policy Note focuses on distribution channels, the role they play in product diversification and costs, and how regulation can promote competition in mutual funds (MFs) distribution. In many emerging market economics (EMEs) where both the capital markets and the MFs have reached certain...

This note outlines barriers to competition in product markets based primarily on the screening of Serbian regulations using the OECD Product Market Regulation methodology and comparison to regulations in the OECD. The note focuses on topics covered by the 2018 OECD-WBG product market regulation...

Air transport plays an important role in fostering development, particularly in facilitating economic integration, generating trade, promoting tourism, and creating employment opportunities. It facilitates integration into the global economy and provides vital connectivity on a national,...

This policy paper explores airline restructuring and regulatory reform challenges and opportunities in the Southern African region with particular focus on Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the air transport sector in the region faced...

The Twenty-sixth United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) was held in early November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, at which Vietnam's Prime Minister, Pham Minh Chinh, pledged once again that Vietnam would be part of the global climate change solution. The country aims to increase the share...

In 2015, Lao PDR is virtually unrecognizable from what it was just a decade ago. A more open, more outward trade landscape has transformed the country from a closed-off backwater into a fast-growing developing country, complete with coffee shops, restaurants, and billboards lining the streets of...

As part of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) program for Trade-Related Assistance to Least Developed Countries (LCDs), which Myanmar joined in April 2013, the Government of Myanmar has asked the World Bank Group (WBG) to be the implementing agency for a Diagnostic Trade Integration Study...

In the last decades, slow growth and job creation have encouraged emigration, further dampening domestic sources of growth in Nepal. Tepid growth over the past decade, the slowest in the region, has resulted in few jobs being created, leading to more Nepalese workers seeking opportunities...

This handbook intends to be a resource for those interested in trade policy reform, in Pakistan and elsewhere. It arose from the Pakistan trade and investment policy program (PTIPP). The PTIPP was designed to work on trade, competitiveness, and gender in Pakistan. This handbook focuses on two...