KR Inv&Growth

completed

The Project objective is to stimulate growth of tourism sector by removing economy-wide and tourism sector level impediments. This will be achieved by reduction in the regulatory compliance costs for private sector, facilitation of investments and re-investments, and increase in number of tourist arrivals from different source markets in the country. The Project will include two components: 1. Strengthen investors protection mechanism and increase transparency by closing the regulatory implementation gap; 2. Develop competitive tourism value chain to increase private investments. In first component, the work will focus on improving investor retention and protection through strengthening the institutional set up and improve procedures for resolving investors grievances by developing recommendations on relevant changes into existing laws, regulations and procedures. The Project will also conduct a comprehensive legal analysis of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and Treaties with Investment Provisions (TIPs) negotiated by the Kyrgyz Republic and compare them with key elements of new generation of the similar treaties (IIAs). This will be followed by the support in preparing general guiding principles for negotiating effective IIAs and support the development of a checklist and elaboration of the key provisions and components of a model IIAs in line with global best practices. In addition, the Project will support the Kyrgyz Government with establishment of an online electronic Portal (E-Registry) as repository of all administrative permits in existence, with all the relevant details for entrepreneurs (costs, documents required, submission form, relevant agencies, etc). The Project will assist in placing in the E-Registry as a priority those procedures related to tourism sector, and then devise a mechanism to continue the analyses and placing of all permits and administrative procedures in the inventory, to increase transparency of regulatory delivery. In tourism component, the work will be organized on the sector level and target specific market segments (resulting from demand side market segmentation analysis) around five strategic pillars which address core obstacles to private sector growth and investment in the sector: 1. Filling the strategic prioritization and market positioning gap: The Project will conduct market research to understand which markets (and sub-segments) hold the most promise in terms of volume and revenue, which source countries generate the highest demand, what needs to be in place to attract these markets and improve local supply. Together with the client, select 1-2 market segments, and work with the client to prepare and implement an action plan to develop these market segments to address national goals. 2. Enabling better air access and connectivity. 3. Removing regulatory barriers. 4. Targeted product development, investment outreach and servicing in the selected market segments (identified as a part of pillar 1 work). 5. Facilitate access to finance for SMEs in tourism.