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Europe & Central Asia



FIAS' work program to date in Europe and Central Asia is mainly focused on:

  • Business environment reform and investment promotion in South East Europe;
  • Business environment and investment policy reform in the frontier regions of Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Most projects are carried out in close coordination with IFC Advisory Services and relevant World Bank country teams.

In addition, building on an existing small program in Austria, Vienna ("Invest in the Western Balkans"), FIAS Investment Generation (IG) has recently established a stronger presence in Vienna under an expanded partnership with the Austrian Ministry of Finance, The Investment Generation Vienna Office extends geographically beyond the Western Balkans to focus on a select number of countries in Eastern and South Eastern Europe and Central Asia, based on client demand and the potential for successful engagement. The program's objective is to support client governments in their goals of developing policies, practices and strategies to foster private sector investment and foreign direct investment in particular. The IG-Vienna adopts an integrated approach, comprising activities in the following areas: (i) identifying and communicating reform options to enhance the overall investment climate, and (ii) working with client countries to formulate sector-based FDI strategies.

South East Europe

Manufacturing, construction, and financial services are the driving sectors behind economic growth in South East Europe. Foreign direct investment to the region has risen threefold from $8.4 billion in 2003 to $26.3 billion in 2006. Yet, despite the rapid economic growth and quick development of those sectors, the region has not matured to its full investment potential due to burdensome regulatory regimes and inefficient government bureaucracies.

FIAS' work in South East Europe has focused on providing assistance for regional, national, and sub-national comprehensive regulatory reform in support of efforts to integrate Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia with the rest of Europe in terms of trade and investment. As they seek their niches in the global economy in the midst of a widening sphere of EU members and aspirants, each is determined to shed an inherited patchwork of regulations in favor of a consistent and streamlined regulatory framework. To support their efforts, FIAS has established a regional network of reformers to exchange ideas and share knowledge on best-practice investment climate reform in South East Europe.

Examples of our work

With FIAS assistance, Albania has developed corporate governance laws that require companies to report potential conflicts of interest and management practices that may have a negative impact on the bottom line. The government also set up a National Registration Center that allows entrepreneurs in one application to simultaneously complete tax, social insurance, health insurance, and labor directorate registration. In addition, Albania reduced corporate tax rates and set up a private credit bureau.

In the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with assistance from FIAS and the World Bank, the government has moved aggressively to implement regulatory reform. According to the latest amendments of the Law on One-Stop-Shop, the time required for registration of a business was reduced to 15 days (down from 48 days in 2005, and from 18 days in 2006). Total costs were cut by about $150-200. As a result, 11,000 firms registered in 2006, 4,000 more than in 2005, including an estimated 20 percent increase in firms moving from the informal to the formal sector.

Former Soviet Union

Investment climate reform remains uneven in the states of the former Soviet Union. In FY08, FIAS focused on regulatory reforms and business enabling environment.

Examples of our work

In Russia, Together with the Doing Business team, FIAS started a pilot project in selected regions to measure their performance on four Doing Business indicators. FIAS has produced a number of regional reports designed to improve business access to real estate, in addition to a large-scale land and real estate survey in 15 regions of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, FIAS advised on new legislation to set more favorable and stimulating terms and procedures for land buy-outs during the transition to liberalized markets for commercially used land by 2010.

Additionally, FIAS launched a new regulatory simplification project in the depressed regions of Russia’s Southern Federal District— the Republics of North Ossetia-Alania and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.

In Ukraine, FIAS focused on generating reform momentum to reduce bureaucracy and corruption. FIAS helped identify reform priorities for business taxation to reduce compliance costs and serve as a baseline for measuring the impact of future reforms.

FIAS developed an initial reform agenda to assist the Kyrgyz Republic.

In Tajikistan, FIAS helped enhance the attractiveness of the investment environment and build the capacity of the institutions that deal with investment policy and facilitation.

In Armenia, FIAS analyzed the country's collateral laws and the newly established collateral registry, and agreed on an action plan to enhance access to finance. FIAS also plans to help the Armenian government streamline administrative procedures and establish capacities for better regulations.

In Azerbaijan, close cooperation between the Doing Business team led to solutions to reform the licensing system and improve the regulatory quality for private sector development. Furthermore, the FIAS team partnered with IFC Advisory Services and the World Bank to advise the government on reforms impacting several indicators. As a result of this collaboration, the government restructured the labor market to make it more flexible for job entrants, tightened corporate governance requirements for large firms, and broadened the scope of information the credit bureau makes available to banks, increasing funds available to businesses. The government also cut unnecessary steps in property registration and introduced online filing for taxes. A new one-stop shop for business start-up streamlined the process in Baku. As a result, registrations jumped 40 percent in the first four months of operation.

Past Projects:
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