Industrial Restructuring - Roundtable

The Roundtable on �Industrial Restructuring in European Transition Economies:  Experience to Date and Prospects� was organized under the auspices of the UNECE Working Party on Industry and Enterprise Development (WP. 8) in Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, on 12 - 13 February 2002. 

The Roundtable assembled 136 representatives of governments, private companies, labour unions and academia from 30 UNECE member countries. Representatives of the United Nations Industrial Development Programme, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Labour Organization also attended.

The Roundtable discussed political, institutional and regulatory issues of industrial restructuring as a means of enhancing national competitiveness in the ECE region. In particular, it addressed the causes, stages and modalities of restructuring at macroeconomic, sectoral and enterprise levels; best practices of restructuring in individual industries (metallurgy, coal mining, high-technology and consumer goods industries) and enterprises; territorial aspects of restructuring and problems associated with single-industry towns and areas; social costs of restructuring in terms of employment and revenue losses and possible remedies; issues of domestic and foreign financing, and finally, the role of governments and ways of raising the efficiency of their restructuring policy.

On the second day of the Roundtable the participants discussed and adopted their recommendations to the Working Party on Industry and Enterprise Development. One of the recommendations advised the Working Party to set up a Team of Specialists on Industrial Restructuring with the aim of disseminating information and advising the ECE governments on best practices in industrial restructuring