Finding Balance 2016 - Benchmarking the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises in Island Countries

Pacific island countries recognize the importance of trade, investment, and private sector development to inclusive economic growth. For more than a decade, Pacific island countries have been introducing policy, legal, and institutional reforms to improve their business environments, including reforms to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that provide many of the basic infrastructure services on which private firms depend for their competitiveness. These reforms have translated into improved SOE performance, increased formal business creation, and new investment. The lesson from this experience is that reform takes time and political commitment, but it works.

This is the fifth comparative study of SOE performance in the Pacific undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the first to include Kiribati and Vanuatu. At the request of the Pacific island countries participating in the study, each edition expands the number of countries covered. In this edition, New Zealand and Singapore were added to enrich the global benchmark. It reflects ADB’s ongoing commitment to increasing cooperation among developing countries on economic development issues and thought leadership on SOE reforms. The 10 participating countries (Fiji, Kiribati, Jamaica, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu) were selected for their comparability and SOE reform experience. We commend their participation as demonstrating their governments’ willingness to identify and address the core issues within their SOE sectors. This transparency is an essential precursor to successful reform