Trade can dramatically improve women's lives, creating new jobs, enhancing consumer choices, and increasing women's bargaining power in society. It can also lead to job losses and a concentration of work in low-skilled employment. Given the complexity and specificity of the relationship between...

Bangladesh has set up an ambitious target of attaining middle-income status by 2021. To achieve this objective, the economy needs to grow at a sustained rate of 7.5-8 percent annually and this would in turn require an increase in private investment to at least 26.6 percent of GDP from 22 percent...

The services sector has played an important role in the structural transformation of Poland, providing employment opportunities, and creating productivity growth. Close to 60 percent of employees now work in the services sector. Nevertheless, the sector's productivity lags that of other...

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...

This report summarizes the main challenges that men- and women-led companies (also referred to as traders or trade firms) and customs brokers face in undertaking cross-border trade of merchandise goods in the Republic of Tajikistan. The report also provides recommendations to address these...

Transition to a new world order with more diffuse distribution of economic power is under way. This first edition of a new World Bank flagship report, 'Global Development Horizons 2011', focuses on three major international economic trends: the shift in the balance of global growth from...

The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit) may have a negative impact on trade and investment flows not just for the UK, but also for the countries with the largest exposure to the UK. The indirect impact of a Brexit-induced recession in the UK -may also be felt in the EU...

The Palestinian economy is severely hampered by trade-related restrictions, high logistics costs, cumbersome procedures and institutional inefficiencies. Operating within an uneven customs union arrangement with Israel, the Palestinian economy has accumulated an enormous trade deficit and...

Jordan's economic performance remains tempered in 2017 while the fiscal adjustment is in progress; yet there are positive signs on the horizon. Real GDP growth for 2017 is expected to reach 2.1 percent, just a 0.1 percentage point (pp) increase from 2016. On the supply side, services continue to...