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Gambia falls in global ranking of Ease of Doing Business
Thursday, 04 November 2010 08:38
By Kemo ChamGambia fell 5 points down in a latest global assessment report of ease of doing business.
It ranks 146 out of 183 economies, five points down from last year at 141.
According to the Doing Business 2011 report, released today, the past year saw 27 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa implemented 49 regulatory reforms to improve their business environment.
‘Ease of Doing Business’ analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. Its findings have stimulated policy debates in more than 80 economies and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies.
Titled: ‘Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs, the eighth in a series of annual reports published by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in collaboration with the World Bank, the Doing Business 2011 report showed Gambia slide in performance in six (6) out of 9 global topic rankings. It registered improvement in only one - Enforcing Contracts, while registering no change in two other topic rankings - paying tax and closing a business.
For the third year in a row, the Island nation of Mauritius ranks highest in the Africa region on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for local firms, ranking Globally 20 among 183 economies, the same point as last year. Rwanda, Cape Verde, and Zambia were placed among the 10 economies worldwide that most improved the ease of doing business for local firms in the past year. While Rwanda moved up 12 places in the global rankings, Cape Verde and Zambia rose 10 and eight spots, respectively.
Many of Africa’s economies made it easier to import and export, a trend driven in part by regional trade integration efforts, the report noted.
“These welcome developments are another reminder that regulatory cooperation between economies pays off,” said Janamitra Devan, Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development at the World Bank Group. “About 30 percent of global trade facilitation reforms in the past year took place in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.”
According to this report, since 2005, about 85 percent of the world’s economies have made it easier for local entrepreneurs to operate, through 1,511 improvements to business regulation. Among the 30 most-improved economies during those five years, a third are in Sub-Saharan Africa—Burkina Faso, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.
Gambia scored worst in the topic ranking of Registering Property at 121, 7 points down from last year. For example, while it cost D200 ($7) and takes 1 to 3 months for the successful completion of an application for Ministerial Consent to transfer leasehold property in Gambia, a similar transaction in neighboring Senegal is done at no cost and takes just 50 days.
Cape Verde, as the region’s second-most-improved economy in the past year, made starting a business easier by computerizing its licensing system, eased property registration, and abolished some stamp duties, while Zambia eliminated its minimum capital requirement, computerized customs declarations, and introduced an electronic case-management system in the courts.
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