Publications & Documents

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are essential drivers of sustainable economic growth in the Western Balkans and Turkey, where they make up 99% of all firms, generate 65% value added and account for 75% of employment. Nevertheless, SMEs across the region continue to face obstacles such as difficulties accessing financing, low levels of digital uptake, regulatory barriers and relatively low participation in international trade. The situation has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: SMEs found themselves fighting for survival amidst reduced demand, lockdowns and travel restrictions, and supply chain disruptions.  This report provides an overview of the implementation of the Small Business Act for Europe during the period 2019-22. It is designed to help policy makers design, implement and monitor policies to support the recovery of SMEs from the pandemic, boost their competitiveness based on OECD and EU good practices, and further enhance the region’s economic growth and resilience.  

The latest OECD analysis of demand and supply in the shipbuilding industry finds significant excess capacity in the sector. Reducing this excess capacity will depend on the willingness and ability of yards to reduce existing capacity and to refrain from new capital investments. The report also presents a literature review of factors that influence newbuilding ship prices, developments affecting ship prices, and a description of newbuilding prices of major ship types and ship size categories. This report is part of a regular monitoring exercise from the OECD Council Working Party on shipbuilding (WP6) of the global shipbuilding market.

The past two decades have seen steady growth in global ship deliveries by countries that are not members of the OECD Council Working Party on Shipbuilding (WP6). Non-WP6 economies made up 47.4% of worldwide deliveries in 2021, mostly driven by the rapid growth of Chinese ship completions that reached a share of 41.1% of global completions. This report presents information on shipbuilding market developments in eleven of the largest non-WP6 shipbuilding economies and provides an overview of their support measures to the sector.

The impacts of the war in Ukraine will be felt severely within OECD economies, especially in border regions on the front-line of the humanitarian refugee crisis. The economic impacts, in particular those driven by rising energy prices, will also be spatially differentiated, affecting some regions more than others. Italy is no exception, with gas-intensive industries concentrated in northern regions, and wheat-based food and farming prevailing in southern regions and islands. While, overall, Russia accounted for a minor share of Italian exports, some regions and industries are more vulnerable than others to falls in bilateral trade, including destinations popular with high per-capita expenditure Russian tourists.

This policy brief on access to finance for inclusive and social entrepreneurship was produced by the OECD and the European Commission. It presents evidence on the access to finance challenges faced by entrepreneurs from under-represented and disadvantaged groups and social entrepreneurs, and discusses how public policy could harness the potential of fintech to address these challenges. This covers crowdfunding, blockchain and the application of big data to finance for inclusive and social entrepreneurship. The policy brief also discusses the growing need for governments to strengthen financial literacy among the target groups of inclusive and social entrepreneurship policy, including with respect to fintech. Different policy approaches are discussed, including embedding financial literacy training in financial intermediation.

La crise du COVID-19 a eu de profondes répercussions sur l'économie mondiale, les PME et les entrepreneurs ayant été particulièrement touchés. Les mesures rapidement mises en place par les gouvernements et les institutions financières publiques ont fourni une bouée de sauvetage cruciale pour les PME en manque de liquidités. La 10eme édition du Tableau de bord de l’OCDE sur le financement des PME et des entrepreneurs illustre les impacts de la crise sur le financement des PME, en suivant les faits récents en matière de dette, d’apport de fonds propres, de financement adossé à des actifs et les conditions de financement des PME, ainsi que l’évolution récente des politiques dans 48 pays. Il en ressort que l’accès des PME aux prêts est resté fluide pendant la pandémie, avec une croissance sans précédent de l'encours des prêts aux PME sur la période. Qui plus est, les conditions de crédit se sont considérablement assouplies : les taux d'intérêt ont atteint des niveaux historiquement bas, les écarts de taux d'intérêt se sont sensiblement resserrés et les exigences de garantie ont diminué dans la plupart des pays du Tableau de bord. En revanche, les sources alternatives de financement telles que le crédit-bail et l'affacturage ont fortement diminué, ce qui est en partie attribuable au recours massif au crédit. Les données sur le financement par apport de fonds propres font état d’un secteur du capital-risque résilient, non sans une certaine fragilité dans le financement de démarrage. Le chapitre thématique de ce rapport étudie l'évolution des mesures de soutien au financement des PME pendant la crise, de la phase de sauvetage à la phase de reprise. Il révèle un recul du soutien aux PME prévu dans les plans de relance nationaux par rapport aux mesures de sauvetage antérieures. Cette version abrégée contient les traductions complètes des chapitres thématiques ainsi que les profils des 5 pays francophones de l’OCDE : Belgique, Canada, France, Luxembourg et Suisse. La version intégrale du rapport comprend tous les profils complets et est disponible en anglais sur le site de l’OCDE.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) provides an important source of financing in Jordan but its reform momentum needs to be sustained and deepened so that the benefits of investment can be shared more widely across society. This report examines how FDI can help Jordan meet Sustainable Development Goals in areas of productivity and innovation, job quality and skills, gender equality and decarbonisation. It provides an overview of the country’s institutional framework for investment and sustainable development and analyses arrangements to ensure policy coordination, stakeholder consultation and evaluation of policy impacts. It also examines the mix of government policies that are currently in place to attract the investment that contributes to sustainable development, noting areas for priority policy reforms.