About this report

About this report

The EBRD seeks to foster the transition to an open market-oriented economy and to promote entrepreneurship in the regions where it invests. To do this effectively, the Bank needs to analyse and understand the process of transition.

The purpose of the Transition Report is to advance this understanding and to share our analysis with partners.

Responsibility for the content of the report is taken by the Office of the Chief Economist. The assessments and views expressed are not necessarily those of the EBRD. All analysis and data in the online country assessments are based on information available in late October 2024. In the report chapters, all assessments and data are based on information available in late August 2024.

Terms and conditions

See www.ebrd.com

Disclaimer

The contents of this publication reflect the opinions of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EBRD.

© European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

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London E14 4BG
United Kingdom
www.ebrd.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Such written permission must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature.

Designed and produced by Blackwood Creative Ltd and the EBRD.

Photography: © EBRD.

Illusrations: © Blackwood Creative Ltd.

Abbreviations: For charts in this Transition Report, the abbreviations used for each economy follow the ISO 3166-1 three-letter economy codes published by the International Organization for Standardization.

Note: The complex coding required for some of our online charts may limit their ability to display in some browsers and to export successfully.

Note: Terms, names, maps and charts used in this report to refer to geographical or other territories, political and economic groupings and units, do not constitute and should not be construed as constituting an express or implied position, endorsement, acceptance or expression of opinion by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or its members concerning the status of any country, territory, grouping and unit, or delimitation of its borders, or sovereignty.

Hyperlinks to non-EBRD websites do not imply any official endorsement of or responsibility for the opinions, ideas, data or products presented at these locations, or guarantee the validity of the information provided. The sole purpose of links to non-EBRD sites is to indicate further information available on related topics.

Acknowledgements

The Transition Report 2024-25 was prepared by the Office of the Chief Economist of the EBRD under the general direction of Beata Javorcik, with contributions from other EBRD departments.

The editors of the report were Ralph De Haas and Alexander Plekhanov.

Oleg Konovalov provided research assistance.

The writing teams for the chapters, boxes and annexes comprised:

Chapter 1

Maxim Chupilkin, Zsóka Kóczán (team leader), Victoria Marino, Alexander Plekhanov and Xiaoyu Yan, with contributions from Chuan-Han Cheng, Nik Milushev and Xuanyi Wang.
Box 1.1 was prepared by Zsóka Kóczán and Juan Lucci.
Box 1.2 was prepared by Victoria Marino.
Box 1.3 was prepared by Zsóka Kóczán and Xiaoyu Yan.
Box 1.4 was prepared by Zsóka Kóczán. Box 1.5 was prepared by Zsóka Kóczán and Alexander Plekhanov.

Chapter 2

Pablo García Guzmán, Anton Grahed, Beata Javorcik and Helena Schweiger (team leader), with contributions from Tim Deisemann.
Box 2.1 was prepared by Pablo García Guzmán, Anton Grahed and Helena Schweiger.
Box 2.2 was prepared by Tim Deisemann and Anton Grahed.
Box 2.3 was prepared by Anton Grahed.

Chapter 3

Cevat Giray Aksoy (team leader), Ralph De Haas, Pablo García Guzmán, Francesco Loiacono, Ege Ondeş, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Xuanyi Wang and Muhammed Hasan Yılmaz.
Box 3.1 was prepared by Pablo García Guzmán.
Box 3.2 was prepared by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose.
Box 3.3 was prepared by Pablo García Guzmán.
Box 3.4 was prepared by Cevat Giray Aksoy and Xuanyi Wang.
Box 3.5 was prepared by Anton Grahed and Ege Ondeş.
Box 3.6 was prepared by Aleksandr Kazakov and Michael Koetter.
Box 3.7 was prepared by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose.
Box 3.8 was prepared by Cevat Giray Aksoy and Muhammed Hasan Yılmaz.

Chapter 4

Cevat Giray Aksoy, Tim Deisemann, Francesco Loiacono (team leader), Federica Mascolo and Niharika Satish, with contributions from Xiaoyu Yan.
Box 4.1 was prepared by Tim Deisemann.
Box 4.2 was prepared by Moritz Hennicke.

Chapter 5

Alexander Plekhanov and Anna Sali, with contributions from sectoral and regional economists and analysts.

The online country assessments and the summary of structural reform at tr-ebrd.com were prepared by the regional economists and analysts of the Policy Strategy and Delivery Department and edited by Peter Sanfey.

Editorial, multimedia and production guidance for the report was provided by Poilin Breathnach, Hannah Fenn, Cathy Goudie, Dan Kelly, Richard Porter, Viktorija Quartly, Bryan Whitford and Marjola Xhunga in the EBRD Communications Department, and by Jennifer Freedman and Matthew Hart. The report was designed and print-managed by Blackwood Creative Ltd: www.weareblackwood.com.

The authors and editors of the report would like to thank Nathan Lane, Rocco Macchiavello, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Vincent Sterk for their guidance. The report also benefited from comments and suggestions from the EBRD Board of Directors and their authorities, EBRD staff and staff of the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

Glossary

ATQ scores
the EBRD’s “assessment of transition qualities” scores
BaTIS
OECD-WTO Balanced Trade in Services
BEEPS
EBRD-World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey
CEB
central Europe and the Baltic states
CHIPS and Science Act
Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, in the United States of America
DSTRI
OECD Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index
EAFRD
European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
EAGF
European Agricultural Guarantee Fund
the EBRD, the Bank
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
EBRD regions
economies where the EBRD works (in the Transition Report 2024-25, the EBRD regions do not include Belarus, Cyprus or Russia; see https://www.ebrd.com/where-we-are.html)
EEA
European Economic Area
EEC
eastern Europe and the Caucasus
EIB
European Investment Bank
EIF
European Investment Fund
EMDEs
emerging markets and developing economies
EMFAF
European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund
ESRS
European Sustainability Reporting Standards
ETD
Groningen Growth and Development Centre’s Economic Transformation Database
ETD-TE
Groningen Growth and Development Centre’s Economic Transformation Database of Transition Economies
EU
European Union
FDI
foreign direct investment
GDP
gross domestic product
GDPR
the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation
GHG
greenhouse gas
GRP
gross regional product
GRW programme
Improvement of Regional Economic Structures programme
GTA
Global Trade Alert database
GVC
global value chain
ICT
information and communication technology
ILO
International Labour Organization
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IPAs
investment promotion agencies
IRA
Inflation Reduction Act
ISCO
International Standard Classification of Occupations
ISI
import substitution industrialisation
ISIC
International Standard Industrial Classification
ISSB
International Sustainability Standards Board
IT
information technology
IWH
Halle Institute for Economic Research
LFS
EU Labour Force Survey
LiTS
Life in Transition Survey
LLM
large language model
NPLs
non-performing loans
NTL
night-time light
NUTS
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics
NZIA
the European Union’s Net-Zero Industry Act
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PPP
purchasing power parity
QuIS
Quantifying Industrial Strategies
R&D
research and development
RBTC
routine-biased technical change
ROC curve
receiver operating characteristic curve
SBS
Eurostat’s Structural Business Statistics
SEE
south-eastern Europe
SEMED
southern and eastern Mediterranean
SEZs
special economic zones
SMEs
small and medium-sized enterprises
SOEs
state-owned enterprises
SSA
sub-Saharan Africa
STEM
science, technology, engineering and mathematics
STRI
World Bank-WTO Services Trade Restrictions Index
TDZs
technology development zones
UN
United Nations
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
VAT
value added tax
V-Dem indicator
Varieties of Democracy indicator
WDIs
World Bank World Development Indicators
WEF
World Economic Forum
WGIs
the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators
WIID
UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database
WIOD
World Input-Output Database
WTO
World Trade Organization

 

Country abbreviations

For charts in this Transition Report, the abbreviations used for each economy follow the ISO 3166-1 three-letter economy codes published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Note: Terms, names, maps and charts used in this report to refer to geographical or other territories, political and economic groupings and units, do not constitute and should not be construed as constituting an express or implied position, endorsement, acceptance or expression of opinion by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or its members concerning the status of any country, territory, grouping and unit, or delimitation of its borders, or sovereignty.

Contact us

EBRD website

www.ebrd.com

Switchboard/central contact

Tel: +44 20 7338 6000

Other enquiries

See the Enquiries page

Office of the Chief Economist

Tel: +44 20 7338 6037
Email: economics@ebrd.com
Chief Economist: Beata Javorcik

Last updated on 26 November 2024