Regional Conference in South East Europe

Regional Conference on Business Environment Reform: Driving the Growth and Competitiveness Agenda



To help further business environment reform in South East Europe, IFC and Montenegro's Ministry of Economic Development recently co-sponsored a conference in Podgorica, Montenegro. Over 130 participants attended the conference, including over 80 government representatives and experts working on reforms in South East Europe, and around 50 representatives of the development community. IFC, World Bank, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), OECD, OSCE, and the European Commission contributed to the conference program. This is the second annual gathering of the regional network of policy makers. The network was established at the last year’s conference in Zagreb, with the aim of supporting regional cooperation in reforms.

IFC partners with economies in South East Europe to improve the conditions in which business operates. In order to achieve this goal, projects in business environment reform focus on the quality of regulations which affect the startup and operation of business, building capacity of local and national governments to facilitate private sector development, and other ways to reduce the cost and risk of doing business and generate domestic and foreign investments.

The conference highlighted the advantages of cooperation among countries in South East Europe towards achieving business environment reforms, in particular through peer-to-peer learning opportunities such as this regional conference. In the future, IFC will work to further strengthen the regional network of policy-makers and continue to provide a forum for exchange of experiences, as well as training opportunities in several technical areas.

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Background Material

Pdf of the official Conference Agenda (includes speakers' biographies in the back of document and here)

Please click on individual sessions below for speakers' presentations.

Monday, October 20th, 2008

• Welcome and Opening Remarks
• Fostering Competitiveness and Growth: Business Environment Reform
• Sub-National Competitiveness – Measuring Performance
• Sub-National Competitiveness – Issues and Challenges

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

• Attracting Private Investment: The Importance of Business Environment Reform for Competitiveness
• Government Services to the Private Sector – ICT as a Catalyst for Reform
• Trade Logistics: Enhancing Regional Competitiveness
• BEE Reform: The Role of Parliaments
• Inspections Reform
• EU Accession: Regulatory Reform Process and Challenges
• Business Environment Reform: Issues and Challenges Going Forward
• Closing Remarks

Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Technical pre-Conference Workshops

• Measuring the Impact of Reforms - Tools and Techniques
• Regulatory Reform: Cleaning up the Stock of Regulations