Progress in Policy Reforms to Improve the Investment Climate in South East Europe: Investment Reform Index 2006

South East Europe has great potential as an investment location. But to what extent have governments in the region leveraged their assets with effective policies to attract investment and stimulate growth?

The Investment Reform Index (IRI) 2006 report measures where South East European (SEE) countries stand regarding policy reform to improve their investment environment in eight fields:

• Investment policy
• Investment promotion and facilitation
• Tax policy
• Anti-corruption and business integrity
• Competition policy
• Trade policy
• Regulatory reform
• Human capital

The IRI measurement process involved a unique tripartite participatory approach including governments, the private sector and the OECD. According to The Economist, the methodology is solid and the results revealing.

The IRI not only allows SEE countries to measure and communicate progress on policy reforms to improve the business climate, it also enables them to benchmark progress relative to their peers, prioritises support needs at both the country and regional level, and provides guidance on how to further improve the investment environment.

Through the creation in April 2007 of a South East European Investment Committee which aims to develop detailed guidelines on how to implement reforms in priority areas, governments of the region have already started to take action based on the IRI results.

The countries assessed in the report are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. A second IRI evaluation will be conducted and published in 2009.