Achieving Regional Convergence: New Project Examines Catching-up Through Improved Investment Climate | WPN World People News

Together with the Ministry of Development, EU Commission Delegation to Turkey, and the Central Finance and Contracts Unit (CFCU), the World Bank kicked off the Regional Investment Climate Assessment Project on January 21.

Co-financed by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey, the project’s objective is to contribute to the reduction of regional disparities in Turkey, and to the sustainable development of the country by improving the investment climate at both regional and national levels.

The Regional Investment Climate Assessment Project will help identify bottlenecks to growth and investment at the regional level. Identification of these bottlenecks is the first step in removing them and promoting private sector development across Turkey. The project will also help to build regional and central government institutional capacity to evaluate the quality of the investment climate using empirically based methods, and, thus, contribute to continuous monitoring of progress over time.

The project is composed of four main activities:

(i) undertaking an Enterprise Survey that covers 6,000 firms across Turkey;

(ii) producing 26 Regional Investment Climate Assessment reports for each of the 26 NUTS-2 regions and, in addition, a comprehensive report that covers all of Turkey;

(iii) producing an Investment Support Services Report as a roadmap to improve the effectiveness of investment promotion and support activities throughout Turkey; and

(iv) building capacity through training of central and regional level staff to regularly and independently conduct regional investment climate assessments.

On the occasion of the project’s kick-off, Martin Raiser, World Bank Country Director for Turkey, stated, “Improving the investment climate is one of the key structural reform challenges facing Turkey. This project will directly contribute to the implementation of the Government’s ‘Improving the Business and Investment Climate Program’. We hope that through this project we can help attract new investment to Turkey and spread its benefits to all regions of the country, including those that have continued to lag behind.”

Source: World Bank