Despite the current situation with the COVID-19 outbreak, the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) has started activities related to the new cycle of competitiveness assessment in the Western Balkans “SEE Competitiveness Outlook 2021”, as the planned activities can currently be perform online.
The assessment of the competitiveness of the Western Balkans economies (Serbia, BiH, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania) for “SEE Competitiveness Outlook 2021” will last during 2020, ending in February 2021, and the final publication will be publicly announced in summer 2021.
In the context of the current situation, which greatly affects all economies in the world, these OECD assessments of the competitiveness of the Western Balkans economies will certainly have a significant place in the plans for economic recovery in the future.
The competent institutions of BiH, including the Foreign Investors Council, have so far actively participated in the two previous cycles of assessment of Competitiveness Outlook for 2016 and 2018. In this regard, the FIC, as one of the participants involved in the new assessment cycle, submitted its inputs to the coordinators from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, which will be further sent to the OECD services.
The competitiveness assessment for “SEE Competitiveness Outlook 2021” this time covers a total of 16 areas (dimensions) that are crucial for the competitiveness of the economy. In that sense, FIC provided inputs for the dimension “Investment Policy and Promotion”.