Red tape "blitz" (UK)

Yesterday a press release from BIS (the Business Innovation and Skills department) announced new plans by the British Government to "slash the burden of regulation". "From April 2013, the Government intends to introduce binding new rules on both the Health & Safety Executive and on local authorities, that will exempt hundreds of thousands of businesses from burdensome health & safety inspections. In future, businesses will only be inspected if they are operating in high risk areas, such as construction, or if they have a poor record. The Government will also change the law next month so companies will only be liable for civil damages in health and safety cases if they can be shown to have acted negligently."

RIA developments in France

This week the French Prime Minister issued the second of two circulars detailing how some of the impacts should be handled in the RIA process. These texts are meant to illustrate commitments of the new legislature:
- circular dated 4 September on including the impact for handicapped persons of new regulation. The text asks all ministries to examine how their reform project may impact this category, and provides a template for assessing the impact; it refers to guidance given by the UN convention (ratified by France in 2010) and national legislation for standards of protection;
- circular dated 20 August on taking into consideration gender issues in new regulation. The text asks all ministries to check at an early stage of drafting new regulation that the project does not increase discrimination against women and verify that the draft need not include specific new rules to protect women or prevent further discrimination. Please refer to the original text for the exact wording as this is an approximate summary.
Our thanks to V. Beloulou for pointing to this interesting development.

Cuba fails to limit red tape on FDI

Under the title "Red tape, bureaucracy and ideology limiting foreign investment in Cuba", MercoPress, a South Atlantic press agency, examines Cuba's investment reform plan announced last year, which spoke positively of foreign investment, promised a review of the cumbersome approval process and stated that special economic zones, joint venture golf courses, marinas and new manufacturing projects were planned. The article reports that diplomats said that "there have been more promises than changes and many obstacles to foreign investment remain". A complaint shared by many foreign companies interested in Cuba is that Cubans insist on 51% ownership of new ventures, which companies do not want because they effectively lose control. For a comparison with other Latin American countries, see the article.

Costa Rica tackles red tape by egov

An interesting article posted today in Tico Times sumarizes the Costa Rican government's project to apply technology to help improve the business environment. The policy is implemented by CINDE, a nongovernmental organization in charge of investment promotion, which relies primarily on introducing egov solutions. But, notes the article, "there is a huge gap in Costa Rica between the well-paved regulatory highway that CINDE and the government have set up for deep-pocketed foreign companies, and the pothole-filled obstacle course that ordinary Costa Ricans who just want to start up a mechanic's shop or a restaurant are forced to navigate... Costa Rica is drowning in red tape." The Doing Business index remains very low: Costa Rica ranks 121st of 183 countries. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Costa Rica ranks 25th out of 32 countries, behind every other Central American country except Honduras. Called the Digital Government project, the project is operationally a division of ICE, the country's power and telecommunications utility, but answers to a government commission presided over by the Prime Minister. It seeks to leverage the information technology expertise of ICE to put as many government processes online as possible. The basic building block, the "digital signature," is already developed. Tico Times also develops the recently introduced silence procedure: law 8,220, the Law (n°8220) for Protection of Citizens against Excessive Requirements and Administrative Processes introduces the concept of Positive Silence: that once all paperwork is presented, the government authorization requested will be deemed granted if the government institution does not respond within three days. Unfortutaly, Tico Times notes, this reform "has been a dead letter because ordinary citizens cannot drag a notary around to certify presentation of every paper required in bureaucratic processes." But if presentation is online, digitally documented by means of a digital cédula, the government authorization game could change radically in favor of ordinary citizens."
See also a presentation of the better regulation policy on the ministry's website and a news item on the National Plan for Simplification and Cutting Red Tape.

           

Template for regulatory reforms (ASEAN)

According to an ASEAN Korea Centre news item, "ASEAN is moving towards creating a template that would institutionalize regulatory reforms that would guide the region in its trade negotiations with other regional trade partners as the ten-member states fully integrate their economies by 2015."
This template would serve as ASEAN's guiding principles when they negotiate for other regional trade deals or the so-called ASEAN + 3.
So far, ASEAN has entered into regional FTA deals including China, EU, Japan, US, Australia-New Zealand, India, among others. On top of that, individual ASEAN members also conduct their own bilateral FTAs with other trading partners. These FTAs are no longer governed by ASEAN rules.
But this guiding principle will not supplant existing ASEAN agreements but rather broaden the economic reach of ASEAN as it seeks to expand trade and investments through regional FTAs.
In July this year, the Philippines hosted the first ASEAN Regulatory Reform Symposium for ASEAN (ARRS) integration in preparation for the ASEAN full economic integration or the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015.

WEF 2012-13 global competitiveness report

Today the World Economic Forum released its much awaited new edition of the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 which assesses the competitiveness landscape of 144 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The rankings are supported by good research into the economic impacts of the respective regulatory frameworks, and include other data such as perception surveys.
Main findings:

Competitiveness gap widening among European countries

US remains world's innovation powerhouse despite decline in overall ranking

People's Republic of China most competitive among large emerging markets; India, Russia fall

From the press release: "This year's report findings show that Switzerland tops the overall rankings in The Global Competitiveness Report for the fourth consecutive year. Singapore remains in second position with Finland, in third position, overtaking Sweden 4th). These and other Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10 with the Netherlands, Germany and United Kingdom respectively ranked 5th, 6th and 8th. The United States (7th), Hong Kong (9th) and Japan (10th) complete the top 10. The Report emphasizes persisting competitiveness divides across and within regions, as short-termism and political deadlock continue to hold back the economic performance of many countries and regions. Looking forward, productivity improvements and private sector investment will be key to improving global economies at a time of heightened uncertainty about the global economic outlook. Read the full report, press release and access the full rankings."

IMF seminar on goblal regulatory developments

From an IMF press release dated August 31, 2012:
"The scope and intensity of the recent financial crisis, and the significant risks posed by financial institutions viewed as too important to fail, have brought to the fore the importance of strengthened financial sector regulatory reform to make the financial system safe. In this context, the IMF organized today a one-day seminar at the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute to take stock of progress on refining the regulatory framework and to define the current challenges in the design of the reform agenda, particularly in the Asian context.The seminar—titled Evolving Financial Regulatory Framework—is part of an extended series of events in advance of the October 2012 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Tokyo, Japan. Panelists and participants, who included officials from central banks and regulatory agencies in Asia, private sector representatives, academics, journalists and IMF staff, discussed key issues in global regulation pertaining to both banks and capital market intermediation. They also discussed how the Asia-Pacific region is prepared to deal with the changes envisaged in the international regulatory framework as well as the future directions and implications for the financial system in the region.
Participants agreed that the regulatory reform agenda was still a work in progress and highlighted some of the implementation challenges and unintended consequences of regulation that may arise. Issues that drew particular attention were related to the impact of new capital and liquidity regulations; supervision and resolution of systemically important financial institutions (both banks and nonbanks); home-host cooperation; potential extra-territoriality arising from national initiatives; and implications from new regulation on capital market-related intermediation."