By Adedapo Adesanya
The World Bank on Thursday said Nigeria has moved up by 15 places to 131 on the Ease of Doing Business ranking to become one of the top 10 countries that improved the process of doing business.
Doing Business acknowledges the 10 economies that improved the most on the ease of doing business after implementing regulatory reforms. Apart from Nigeria, others that made the list were Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, and India.
The ranking is based on quantitative indicators on regulation for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
Nigeria was previously ranked at the 146 out of the 190 countries assessed by the global financial institution.
In the report released today, the World Bank said, “Nigeria conducted reforms impacting six indicators, including making the enforcement of contracts easier, which placed the 200-million-person economy among the world’s top improvers.
“Only two Sub-Saharan African economies rank in the top 50 on the ease of doing business rankings while most of the bottom 20 economies in the global rankings are from the region.”
However, this was not the case with some other parts of the world, as the Bretton Woods Institution stated: “Sub-Saharan Africa still underperforms in several areas. In getting electricity, for example, businesses must pay more than 3,100 percent of income per capita to connect to the grid, compared to just over 400 percent in the Middle East and North Africa or 272 percent in Europe and Central Asia.
“When it comes to trading across borders and paying taxes, businesses spend about 96 hours to comply with documentary requirements to import, versus 3.4 hours in OECD high-income economies, and small and medium-sized businesses in their second year of operation need to pay taxes more than 36 times a year, compared to an average of 23 times globally.”
According to the World Bank, China and India made the top 10 list of governments that have done the most in the past year to improve the ease of doing business in their countries.
As for China, this would be the second time in a row it was making such a stride as it overtook France to take the 31st spot, while India climbed to 63rd based off the multiple economic reforms put in place by the Narendra Modi government.
Modupe Gbadeyanka