"Western Balkans could take up to 200 years to catch up with EU"

Western Balkans countries need to tackle their low productivity and speed up reforms, the EBRD said on Monday, warning it could otherwise take them up to 200 years to catch up with the living standards of the EU states they hope to join.

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia are held back by weak institutions, corruption and government dominance in some industries, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said.

The current average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for the six countries, still scarred by ethnic wars fought in the 1990s, is only half the average in 11 EU member states of Eastern Europe, such as Poland or Hungary, and just a quarter of their more advanced western European peers.

"The fundamental problem holding back the region's economic development is low productivity," the EBRD said in...