Browse by: "2021"

Few small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scale up, but these few fast growing firms are the major driver of new jobs added to OECD economies. This report helps policy makers get a grip on growth of those few SMEs by considering the transformation they undergo before, during and after their high-growth phase. Based on analysis of detailed firm-level data in a pilot project implemented for Finland, Italy, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Spain, the report shows that SMEs in all types of places, of all ages and in all sectors have the potential to scale up. The strength of the potential does, however, vary. Getting a grip on growth of SMEs can pay important dividends as scalers contribute the majority of new jobs created by SMEs during their high-growth phase, but also continue to contribute positively to aggregate job creation and aggregate growth in turnover in the following years. A closer look at the characteristics of SMEs that scale up compared to similar “peers” that do not, shows that scaling is likely a strategic choice and includes investments and other preparatory transformation in the years preceding scaling up.

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2021 is the sixth edition in a series of biennial reports that examine how public policies at national, regional and local levels can support job creation, economic growth and social inclusion by overcoming obstacles to business start-ups and self-employment by people from disadvantaged or under-represented groups in entrepreneurship. It shows that there are substantial untapped opportunities for entrepreneurship in populations such as women, youth, the unemployed, and immigrants and highlights the need for more differentiated government entrepreneurship policies that respond to the specific barriers they face. The report includes an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 across these populations of entrepreneurs and the effectiveness of the policy response. It also contains thematic policy chapters on microfinance and leveraging the potential of immigrant entrepreneurs. These chapters present the range of current policy actions in EU and OECD countries and make recommendations for future policy directions. Finally, the report contains country profiles for each of the 27 EU Member States that identify for each county the major recent trends in entrepreneurship by women, youth, seniors and immigrants, the key policy issues and the recent policy actions.

Despite potentially tremendous benefits, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lag in the digital transformation. Emerging technologies, as diverse as they are, offer a range of applications for them to improve performance and overcome the size-related limitations they face in doing business. However, SMEs must be better prepared, and stakes are high. SMEs make the most of the industrial fabric in many countries and regions, they create jobs (most jobs sometimes) and are the cement of inclusive and sustainable societies. The SME digital gap has increased inequalities among people, places and firms, and there are concerns that the benefits of the digital transformation could accrue to early adopters, further broadening these inequalities. Enabling SME digitalisation has become a top policy priority in OECD countries and beyond. The report looks at recent trends in SME digital uptake, including in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It focuses on issues related to digital security, online platforms, blockchain ecosystems, and artificial intelligence. The report identifies opportunities, risks of not going digital, and barriers to adoption. It looks to concrete policy action taken worldwide to speed the SME transformation and raises a series of considerations to advance the SME digital policy agenda.

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the OECD review of SME and Entrepreneurship Policy in the Slovak Republic. It examines how to address the challenges of stimulating more productive entrepreneurship, supporting enterprise scale-up, stimulating SME exports and global value chain participation, increasing SME innovation and innovative entrepreneurship, and making entrepreneurship more inclusive across the population. The report examines SME and entrepreneurship performance and the business environment for SMEs and entrepreneurship in the Slovak Republic, giving benchmarks against other OECD countries. The report also takes a close look at arrangements to ensure policy leadership, co-ordination and consultation in this field. It examines the government support programmes across areas including SME and entrepreneurship financing, supporting innovation, building SME workforce skills and public procurement. It also examines the east-west divide in SME and entrepreneurship activity and their supporting conditions in the Slovak Republic and how to strengthen regional entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. Further chapters focus on SME digitalisation and the promotion of self-employment and social entrepreneurship to strengthen the labour market attachment of the Slovak Republic's Roma community.

This publication presents the findings of the OECD review of SME and Entrepreneurship Policy in Viet Nam. It offers an in-depth examination of the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship in Viet Nam, the quality of the business environment, and national policies in support of new and small businesses. The report shows that Viet Nam is one of the most globally integrated economies in the world, building its solid growth performance on the attraction of foreign direct investments and export promotion. Viet Nam’s business environment has considerably improved in recent years, although important reforms are still needed in certain policy areas. Viet Nam's SMEs contribute to national employment and national GDP proportionally less than in the OECD area, although official statistics do not take into consideration the large informal sector that mostly consists of self-employed people and micro-enterprises. Viet Nam’s SME and entrepreneurship policies are relatively new, dating back to the early 2000s. In this respect, the 2018 SME Support Law is an important milestone which may help address some of the challenges that are holding back the development of a more vigorous domestic enterprise sector. Key policy priorities in this regard, building better business linkages between multinationals and local enterprises and stronger business development services, are the subjects of two thematic chapters of the report.

Despite its rapid economic growth over the past decades, Poland’s economic inactivity rate remains above the OECD average and regional differences in labour force participation persist. This report sheds light on the drivers of economic inactivity across Polish regions and analyses them in light of both individual and structural factors associated with labour force participation. It highlights the need for more inclusive active labour market policies to help integrate the economically inactive into labour markets across Poland. A better integration of services provided by national and local institutions, as well as a strengthened role of the social economy, is needed to address the complex needs of economically inactive persons.

Egypt is one of Africa’s industrial heavyweights. Transforming the country's economy to sustain job-rich and sustainable growth are pivotal steps in its march towards prosperity. Today’s search for new development models, accelerated by the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for shifting up a gear in raising Egypt’s industrial capabilities to compete in an industry 4.0 and agro 4.0 landscape. The Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Egypt uses a forward-looking framework to assess the country's readiness to embrace change. This includes an analysis of the game-changing potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and perspectives on agro-food and electronics (i.e. what in Egypt is referred to as part of the engineering sector), as well as identifying priorities for future reforms. This review is the result of government-business dialogue, and benefited from peer learning from Italy and Malaysia. It also resulted from international and multi-stakeholder knowledge sharing through a dedicated Peer Learning Group (PLG) and the OECD Initiative for Policy Dialogue on Global Value Chains, Production Transformation and Development.

COVID-19 is likely to leave long-lasting effects on local labour markets. It is accelerating a pre-existing trend towards automation, as firms look even more to new technologies to pandemic proof their operations. While automation offers the opportunity to boost productivity, it can also lead to job polarisation as vulnerable workers who lose their jobs may not have the skills needed in a changing labour market. This OECD report examines the potential impacts of automation on people and places across Australia. It also sheds light on policies and programmes that can help regions and cities to prepare for the future of work.

This report presents a comprehensive assessment of the policy instruments adopted by the Netherlands to reach carbon neutrality in its manufacturing sector by 2050. The analysis illustrates the strength of combining a strong commitment to raising carbon prices with ambitious technology support, uncovers the pervasiveness of competitiveness provisions, and highlights the trade-off between short-term emissions cuts and longer-term technology shift. The Netherlands’ carbon levy sets an ambitious price trajectory to 2030, but is tempered by extensive preferential treatment to energy-intensive users, yielding a highly unequal carbon price across firms and sectors. The country’s technology support focuses on the cost-effective deployment of low-carbon options, which ensures least-cost decarbonisation in the short run but favours relatively mature technologies. The report offers recommendations for policy adjustments to reach the country’s carbon neutrality objective, including the gradual removal of exemptions, enhanced support for emerging technologies and greater visibility over future infrastructure plans.

Since its first edition in 2010, the OECD Development Centre's Perspectives on Global Development report has tracked development trends and policy priorities in developing countries. This new report examines the phenomenon of discontent. Between the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, discontent surged around the world. It was especially evident in middle-income countries and was often most acute amongst the middle classes that have emerged in developing countries over recent decades. The report explores the economic, political and sociological drivers of discontent and argues that building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries will require approaches that simultaneously improve citizens' well-being, promote productive transformation and strengthen social cohesion. The report concludes by examining the international dimension of discontent and demonstrates how weaknesses and imbalances in the present multilateral system are eroding humankind's capacity for collective action in the face of global threats, notably the climate crisis. The rise in discontent has exposed failings in prevailing economic, social and political models at all levels: addressing discontent means fixing these systems, and doing so in an inclusive and sustainable manner.

During the 2000s, the Turkish shipbuilding industry witnessed substantial growth, driven by its exports and dynamic financing by local banks and economic stability. Turkish shipyards focused on building relatively small oil and chemical tankers during this period.In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis led Turkish shipbuilding groups to look for new areas of specialisation. Thus, Turkish shipbuilding groups began to reorient their main activities into ship repair, ship scrapping, and the building of niche ships such as alternative fueled-vessels. With the significant decline in new construction demands worldwide, they focused on tailor-made ships, notably for European buyers. Turkish smaller yards tend now to be multipurpose, offering conversion, repair and maintenance services as well as the building of new ships.

In immediate responses to the COVID-19 crisis, science and innovation are playing essential roles in providing a better scientific understanding of the virus, as well as in the development of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. Both the public and private sectors have poured billions of dollars into these efforts, accompanied by unprecedented levels of global cooperation. However, the economic crisis that is currently unfolding is expected to severely curtail research and innovation expenditures in firms, while debt-laden governments will face multiple, competing demands for financial support. These developments threaten to cause long-term damage to innovation systems at a time when science and innovation are most needed to deal with the climate emergency, meet the Sustainable Development Goals, and accelerate the digital transformation. Governments will need to take measures to protect their innovation systems as part of their stimulus and recovery packages, but should also use these as opportunities for reforms. In particular, science, technology and innovation (STI) policy should shift towards supporting a more ambitious agenda of system transformation that promotes a managed transition to more sustainable, equitable and resilient futures.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs have been hit hard during the COVID-19 crisis. Policy responses were quick and unprecedented, helping cushion the blow and maintain most SMEs and entrepreneurs afloat. Despite the magnitude of the shock, available data so far point to sustained start-ups creation, no wave of bankruptcies, and an impulse to innovation in most OECD countries. However, government support has been less effective at reaching the self-employed, smaller and younger firms, women, and entrepreneurs from minorities. Countries were not all even in their capacity to support SMEs either. As vaccine campaigns roll out and economic prospects brighten, governments have to take the turn of a crisis exit and create the conditions to build back better. The OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2021 brings new evidence on the impact of the crisis and policy responses on SMEs and entrepreneurs. It reflects on longer-term issues, such as SME indebtedness or SME role in more resilient supply chains or innovation diffusion. The report contains country profiles that benchmark impact, factors of vulnerability, and sources of resilience in OECD countries, and give a policy spotlight on liquidity support and recovery plans for SMEs.

This Review assesses Ukraine’s investment climate vis-à-vis the country’s energy sector reforms and discusses challenges and opportunities in this context. Capitalising on the OECD Policy Framework for Investment and other relevant instruments and guidance, the Review takes a broad approach to investment climate challenges facing Ukraine’s energy sector. It covers investment trends, the current policy and regulatory framework, the legal and institutional framework for investment protection, investment promotion and facilitation, public governance, energy infrastructure and policies relating to promoting and enabling responsible business conduct. The analysis and recommendations in the Review can help policy makers strengthen the enabling conditions for investment in Ukraine’s energy sector.

This Webbook provides a set of cross-country comparable statistics on labour productivity levels, the contributions of labour, capital services and multifactor productivity (MFP) to GDP growth, industry contributions to labour productivity growth, labour productivity gaps between SMEs and large firms, the evolution and composition of investment, the decoupling between real wages and productivity, and labour income share developments. It also includes a special chapter on productivity measurement and analysis at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources. Despite the fact that the private sector has the potential to contribute to a wide range of SDGs, and that many firms find it economically viable to develop sustainable products and services, firms still face significant hurdles in their sustainability transition. Based on this new evidence, this book provides some recommendations on the design of industrial policies to enhance the contribution of businesses to the SDGs.

Global events like the Olympics or cultural festivals offer cities a chance to spur growth and capitalize on local assets. However, they also pose risks such as budget overruns and community displacement. The OECD's Global Events Toolkit translates policy advice into actionable steps for governments, organizers, and hosts, ensuring events deliver lasting benefits. In a post-COVID era, where recovery is paramount, maximizing the value of global events is crucial. This toolkit equips policymakers with strategies to create resilient, inclusive, and sustainable outcomes, aligning with OECD's commitment to supporting governments worldwide in realizing the full potential of global events for local development.