Local content policy (LCP) can enable a country to retain a greater share of the value generated by the exploitation of its natural resources. By prioritising domestic suppliers of goods and services, it can increase the competitiveness of local industries, ultimately driving social and economic development across the whole country.
Research by Professor Yelena Kalyuzhnova, Director of the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies at Henley Business School, has identified a number of factors that influence the success of LCP implementation. As a result of the research, local content is now recognised as a developmental instrument for nurturing the whole economy, beyond the oil and gas sectors. This research has informed the development, refinement and adoption of LCP in the industrial and economic development strategies of a number of resource-rich emerging economies in Euro-Asia, as well as Kuwait.
The research has been particularly influential in Kazakhstan, where it shaped government policy during the country’s accession to membership of the Eurasian Economic Union and the World Trade Organisation and has recently been used to inform the State Program of Industrial and Innovative Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2020–25.
Across the world, the impact on local supply chain industries of the policies revised as a result of the research are now being realised through increased skills capacity, production and diversification, all of which play an important role in increasing economic growth.
The research has also been incorporated into the curricula of education and training programmes of institutions and professional bodies, both in the UK and across Kazakhstan, Russia and the Middle East.
Find out more
View the full impact case study on the REF 2021 website: Using Local Content Policy to Drive Economic Growth in Resource-Rich Countries