November 19, 2012

Your Excellency, and ladies and gentlemen:

Thank you very much for bringing us together for this discussion. It’s a great pleasure to join you here today.

The remarks by the Minister of the Economy, and by the Bank of Italy’s distinguished experts, have given us an in-depth analysis of Italy’s current economic environment and the prospects for your national reform agenda.

And I’m very grateful to my colleague Augusto Lopez-Claros for outlining the details of the World Bank Group’s new “sub-national” report on “Doing Business in Italy 2013.”

We hope that our report will prove to be informative, as Italy’s policymakers clarify their options for further reforms.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve found that policymakers in many countries have used the “Doing Business” indicators to make well-informed and fact-based decisions – comparing the elements of their countries’ business environments alongside those of other countries.

Using consistent and objective criteria, the “Doing Business” series helps strengthen our understanding of the viewpoint of firms in the private sector – especially micro-, small and medium-sized firms. Smaller firms that succeed in growing are the job-creating engines of every thriving economy.

As Augusto mentioned: Our new report’s sub-regional findings should be considered within the context of Italy’s overall economy.

In this year’s worldwide survey, Italy ranks 73rd out of the 185 economies that we’ve studied for their ease of doing business.

Italy thus lags many members of the European Union, whose member countries have an average ranking of 40th.

So, clearly, we can see that there is some room for improvement.

It is encouraging to see, however, that the regulatory environment in Italy is improving – and the pace of change is picking up.

Over the past eight years, policymakers have implemented 14 institutional or regulatory reforms in the areas measured by “Doing Business.”

So strong steps are being taken in areas that, over the long term, can help strengthen Italy’s competitiveness.

The reforms made so far have helped narrow the gap in business regulation between Italy and the best performers in the European Union.

Among the noteworthy reforms, on the national level: Although Italy still ranks below the EU-27 average on the ease of doing business, it ranks higher than the EU-27 average in 3 out of 10 areas of business regulation: registering property, protecting investors and resolving insolvency.

And recent reforms in the area of getting electricity will make it easier and less costly to gain access to power.

Improving Italy’s competitiveness will require following-through successfully on structural reforms – and that will not be an easy task. Yet the willingness to embrace reforms – both large and small – is a positive sign that there is a collective willpower to move in the right direction.

Maintaining the momentum for the reform agenda will be crucial in improving competitiveness.

And, from our vantage point at the World Bank, we believe that understanding the perspective of firms in the private sector is essential.

Knowing how entrepreneurs and executives perceive the business environment is an important precursor to deciding which future reform efforts to pursue. That’s why our surveys gather detailed information from a wide array of private-sector professionals as well as government sources.

Recognizing the reasons for sub-optimal performance, and then getting the policy response right, is vital to the reform agenda.

By enacting the most meaningful reforms, policymakers can remove the bottlenecks and impediments that hobble private-sector performance – and thus can make it easier for entrepreneurs to unleash their creativity and competitive spirit.

Analyzing objective data about the business environment – like the data in the “Doing Business” series – is thus an essential first step in considering reforms to strengthen innovation and competitiveness.

Of course, enacting business-environment reforms will not, by itself, be enough to improve national economic competitiveness.

That will require a vastly broader agenda – including greater investment in research and development; ensuring access to finance; a strong education policy and continuously higher skills training; and maintaining a strong infrastructure (both physical and institutional).

But improving the environment for doing business is one indispensable step in boosting productivity and competitiveness.

We hope you’ll find that the results of our new “Doing Business” report are helpful in considering the range of international “best practices” – which can then be adapted, country by country, to help build a thriving economy.

The economy of Italy has long been one of the world’s most vibrant – and a wide-ranging reform agenda can ensure that it remains one of the world’s leaders.

The world is eager to learn the secrets of Italy’s creativity and economic strength – even as Italy, for its part, examines the strengths and weaknesses of other economies, and learns from their experiences.

In the spirit of learning from one another – of bringing careful analysis to the process of benchmarking international best practices – we believe that the “Doing Business” series will help raise the bar for economic performance everywhere.

It has been a pleasure for the World Bank Group to share this new report with you.

By considering ideas about bringing out the best in private-sector performance, we can help ensure that the reform agenda will move forward – thus helping every nation meet the continuing challenge of steadily improving their competitiveness.

Thank you very much.