ocp192_en

3. Programme implementationprices, better products and higher productivity. The bulk of these reforms was legislated in March2014. Additional recommendations will be adopted as part of the sectoral legislation, including bythe Ministries of Development, Environment, Maritime, Health, Tourism and Transport by June2014, as well as the phased reform of nuisance charges by to the end of the year. Along withtechnical specifications and two codes of conducts, the authorities also intend to bring in line withEU best practices other pending provisions, including on bakeries, sales periods, truck licenses,and Sunday trade, during the second half of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015. A follow-oncompetition project in the sectors of manufacturing, wholesale trade, telecommunication and e-commerce is planned for later this year.• Licensing procedures are being overhauled. With support of the World Bank, the Governmentintends to adopt a framework law for investment licensing related to, among others, construction,installations, operations, public infrastructure and business parks. The goal is to unify andstreamline the system by establishing a single licensing framework, shifting from ex-ante permitsto ex-post compliance, and involving the private sector in controls. By end of the year, theauthorities plan to adopt all secondary legislation. In addition, the Government is on track to adoptby autumn the pending secondary legislation on environmental licensing. Furthermore, withsupport of the World Bank, the authorities presented a national logistics strategy and intend toadopt a logistics law by May 2014.• The ease of doing business continues to improve (see Box 13). The Government has loweredsubstantially the property transfer tax and eliminated the capital concentration tax for start-ups. Inaddition, the authorities eliminated, or transferred to the state budget, nuisance charges in March2014. In addition, the Government will conduct a survey for identifying additional charges andreview comprehensively reciprocal charges in the coming months. The authorities will eliminateadditional nuisance charges by end of the year. Finally, with the objective of reducingadministrative burden on business by 25%, the Government adopted a first package ofsimplifications in March 2014 and intends to adopt recommendations in thirteen sectors,developed with support of the OECD, by June 2014.102. The authorities have taken measures to improve land use for economic development. TheGovernment intends to adopt legislation to define coastal zones, and will adopt a law for spatialplanning to streamline the national planning process in May 2014. This law reduces the number ofhierarchical plans that have to be in place for a development to occur, facilitate strategy investment andprivatisation, and devolves powers to local levels to modify existing plans in line with economic needs.The authorities will also adopt by June a new forestry law to clarify the definition of forests and forestlands and streamline forestry administration. In addition, the Government has made progress intendering projects for the cadastre and forestry maps in order to ensure their completion by 2020.103. Reforms of trade facilitation have been stepped up. Following the advice of the World CustomsOrganization, the authorities have adopted simplified procedures in pilot customs offices and expandede-customs functions since July 2013. For exports, the Government expects to implement automaticclearance for low risk declarations in pilot offices and align risk assessment systems in line with EUbest practices across all customs offices by April 2014. For exports and imports across all customsoffices, the authorities intend to enable electronic payment by September 2014 and implementoptimised procedures by December 2014.53