South Asia's turn : policies to boost competitiveness and create the next export powerhouse / Gladys Lopez-Acevedo, Denis Medvedev, and Vincent Palmade, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lopez Acevedo, Gladys, editor.

Medvedev, Denis, editor.

Palmade, Vincent, editor.

Series:

South Asia development matters

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic development--South Asia.

Economic development.

Commercial policy.

Foreign trade promotion.

South Asia--Economic conditions.

South Asia.

Economic conditions.

Foreign trade promotion--South Asia.

South Asia--Commercial policy.

Economic history.

Physical Description:

xvi, 161 pages ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : World Bank Group, [2017]

Summary:

South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population, especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: economies of agglomeration: firms and workers accrue benefits from locating close together in cities or clusters through urbanization and localization ; participation in global value chains: stronger competitive pressures weed out least productive firms while others improve by gaining access to new knowledge and better inputs ; firm capabilities: in order to operate close to what would be considered optimum efficiency levels given the prevailing factor prices and thus employ South Asia's abundant labor. The report shows that South Asia has great untapped competitiveness potential. Realizing this potential would require the governments in the region to pursue second generation trade policy reforms for firms to better contribute to and benefit from global value chains (e.g. facilitating imports for exporters), to facilitate the development of industrial clusters in secondary cities (cheaper and less congested than the metros) as well as to deploy policies to improve the capabilities of firms.

Contents:

Part 1. South Asia's competitiveness challenge and opportunity

The region's competitiveness potential remains largely unrealized

Improving competitiveness requires raising productivity rather than keeping costs low

Part 2. Productivity performance: firms and linkages

Business environment challenges continue to weigh on firm performance

Productivity-boosting agglomeration economies are underleveraged

Limited success in linking to global value chains

Firm capabilities are constrained

Part 3. The way forward

Potential for increased growth through policy reforms

Need for greater emphasis on trade policies, spatial policies, and firm capabilities.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

1464809739

9781464809736

OCLC:

959276407

Publisher Number:

10.1596/978-1-4648-0973-6