From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal

As a small, landlocked economy, Nepal’s development prospects are closely tied to its ability to increase integration in the regional and global marketplace. Despite significant changes in Nepal’s trade sector over the past decade, the country’s ex...

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Main Author: Gomez Mera, Laura
Format: Report
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26564537/evidence-policy-supporting-nepal’s-trade-integration-strategy-designing-institutions-promote-trade-investment-nepal-policy-note-5
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24933
id okr-10986-24933
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-249332021-05-25T08:50:37Z From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal Gomez Mera, Laura trade policy investment trade facilitation trade promotion As a small, landlocked economy, Nepal’s development prospects are closely tied to its ability to increase integration in the regional and global marketplace. Despite significant changes in Nepal’s trade sector over the past decade, the country’s export performance has remained poor, with exports growing at a much slower pace than imports. Nepal’s external vulnerability is deepened by its dependence on remittances to finance growing trade deficits.Achieving greater integration in the global economy and building a competitive export sector will require overcoming various economic and institutional challenges. This paper assesses the performance of these organizations in their role of promoting exports and investment. It has two main objectives. First, we describe the main export and investment promotion institutions in Nepal and examine their mandates, missions, and the services they offer.Second, we look at international best practices in export and investment promotion, to identify cost effective approaches appropriate for small developing countries. Based on this, we provide a number of recommendations for strengthening and improving the role of export and investment support organizations and initiatives in Nepal, as well as the level of coordination and cooperation among them. The report is organized as follows. In the next section, we briefly review the economic rationale for public intervention in the promotion of exports and investment and summarize the main findings of the literature regarding the most effective institutional designs and practices. We also discuss the arguments for and against a merger of the two activities within a single institution. Section three describes and assesses the institutional framework for export and investment promotion in Nepal. In Section four, we examine four case studies of “best practices” in the promotion of exports and export-oriented investment –Costa Rica, Jamaica, Colombia, and Latvia. We also discuss examples of successful promotion and development of the links between the tourism sector and exports, Mauritius, which offers some lessons for the case of Nepal. The final section contains the policy recommendations. 2016-08-25T15:49:27Z 2016-08-25T15:49:27Z 2016-06-01 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26564537/evidence-policy-supporting-nepal’s-trade-integration-strategy-designing-institutions-promote-trade-investment-nepal-policy-note-5 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24933 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work :: Policy Note Economic & Sector Work South Asia Nepal
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic trade policy
investment
trade facilitation
trade promotion
spellingShingle trade policy
investment
trade facilitation
trade promotion
Gomez Mera, Laura
From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
geographic_facet South Asia
Nepal
description As a small, landlocked economy, Nepal’s development prospects are closely tied to its ability to increase integration in the regional and global marketplace. Despite significant changes in Nepal’s trade sector over the past decade, the country’s export performance has remained poor, with exports growing at a much slower pace than imports. Nepal’s external vulnerability is deepened by its dependence on remittances to finance growing trade deficits.Achieving greater integration in the global economy and building a competitive export sector will require overcoming various economic and institutional challenges. This paper assesses the performance of these organizations in their role of promoting exports and investment. It has two main objectives. First, we describe the main export and investment promotion institutions in Nepal and examine their mandates, missions, and the services they offer.Second, we look at international best practices in export and investment promotion, to identify cost effective approaches appropriate for small developing countries. Based on this, we provide a number of recommendations for strengthening and improving the role of export and investment support organizations and initiatives in Nepal, as well as the level of coordination and cooperation among them. The report is organized as follows. In the next section, we briefly review the economic rationale for public intervention in the promotion of exports and investment and summarize the main findings of the literature regarding the most effective institutional designs and practices. We also discuss the arguments for and against a merger of the two activities within a single institution. Section three describes and assesses the institutional framework for export and investment promotion in Nepal. In Section four, we examine four case studies of “best practices” in the promotion of exports and export-oriented investment –Costa Rica, Jamaica, Colombia, and Latvia. We also discuss examples of successful promotion and development of the links between the tourism sector and exports, Mauritius, which offers some lessons for the case of Nepal. The final section contains the policy recommendations.
format Report
author Gomez Mera, Laura
author_facet Gomez Mera, Laura
author_sort Gomez Mera, Laura
title From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
title_short From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
title_full From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
title_fullStr From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
title_full_unstemmed From Evidence to Policy Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy : Designing Institutions to Promote Trade and Investment in Nepal
title_sort from evidence to policy supporting nepal’s trade integration strategy : designing institutions to promote trade and investment in nepal
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2016
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26564537/evidence-policy-supporting-nepal’s-trade-integration-strategy-designing-institutions-promote-trade-investment-nepal-policy-note-5
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24933
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