A look at state-owned enterprises and development

Policies for the business sector are back in fashion. In highly developed countries, this has been the case at least since the most recent economic crisis forced a rethinking of industrial competitiveness and structural priorities. In developing countries, the process has been underway for much longer. In their case, policy action has traditionally been guided by broad-ranging structural reform priorities, set forth in national developmental strategies and policies. The question has been whether to supplement these with a specific and targeted “industrial policy” aimed at nurturing industrial development very often also furthering the interests of certain priority sectors and/or prioritising individual “national champion” enterprises. This has been the case increasingly over the past decade.