International Trade in Services.pdf - DSpace at Khazar University

Building Empires Overseas 197
Box: 6.3: Facilitating the Administration of Building Permits
In 2005–08, the World Bank (2008) recorded 60 reforms specifically aimed at easing
the process for obtaining construction permits. Of these, 35 were initiatives targeted at
reforming the legal framework, and the other 25 were administrative improvements.
Legal reform dealt with building codes, regulations, and bylaws that change the standards
and organization of construction permitting. These reforms were generally
more complex and time consuming to implement than the administrative reforms,
which typically focus on streamlining project clearances, introducing time limits, and
moving the processes online. The most frequent type of reform involved streamlining
project clearances. One-stop shops connect several government agencies and public
utilities and provide a single point of contact between the entrepreneur and the
building authority. Another common reform was the introduction of statutory time
limits or silence-is-consent rules.
For example, in Jamaica, the government implemented a 90-day statutory time
limit and managed to cut the actual time to obtain a building permit by 80 days.
In Egypt, a new building code established a single authority for building permit
applications and enforces a 30-day statutory time limit. Before this reform, each
utility connection required three separate letters from a municipality. In Colombia,
the implementation of a silence-is-consent rule helped to reduce the processing
time from three to two months. Authorities in the Kyrgyz Republic launched a new
one-stop shop for issuing architectural planning terms and construction permits.
They also eliminated the location permit by presidential decree that previously
required the signature of the capital’s mayor and took 60 days to obtain. These initiatives
helped cut nine procedures and 173 days off the processing cycle. Finally,
several African countries implemented a number of reforms. Liberia advertised a
30-day statutory time limit, designed a user-friendly checklist of required documents,
reduced the building permit fee by half, and eliminated the requirement of
some high-level signatures. Sierra Leone reformed its inspection regime, recruited
professional inspectors, and cut down on random visits. Kenya overhauled all its
building regulations.
many countries because they are deemed unable to fulfill the criteria established
by donors. Strict criteria mean that the home sector is unable to develop and
upgrade its technical expertise, which, by extension, makes it less attractive to foreign
suppliers. However, other experts noted that domestic companies in some
countries were not sufficiently strong to take on large donor-financed projects
and that international contractors can have a positive effect on the local sector
because much work is subcontracted to domestic contractors.
The design of tendering specifications in government procurement can effectively
regulate market access. Government procurement agencies are often
accused of favoring either domestic or foreign contractors, for example, by explicitly
providing preferential treatment for local companies (through preference
margins) or by setting minimum requirements for financial support that may be
within reach for local companies. Market entry for foreign providers can, for