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Wene Owino
Nation

Botswana, Senegal and Burkina Faso are the only African countries in the top 10 list of business regulatory reformers while Mauritius is the continent’s sole representative in the top 25 on regulatory ease of doing business, says the World Bank and the IFC. The sixth edition of the annual Doing Business report, published by the World Bank and IFC ranks Senegal fifth, Burkina Faso sixth and Botswana seventh in the list of top reformers in the world while Mauritius is 24th in the league of countries with regulatory ease of doing business.

Botswana is ranked seventh in the world after improvements in its business environment by speeding-up the start-up process through computerisation. The report says that a similar effort, which included training customs officers in using an electronic data interchange system, helped in speeding up the processing of trade documents and reduced the time to export by two days and the time to import by a day. It added that a new Company Act has come into force in Botswana, requiring that shareholders approve related-party transactions and that directors repay damages and surrender profits if held liable. The report highlights that since January, companies have been required to pay 0.2 percent of turnover for the training of workers.

Training
In addition to Botswana, the report lists the top 10 global reformers in descending order as Azerbaijan, Albania, the Kyrgyz Republic, Belarus, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Egypt.

Doing Business 2009 ranks

181 economies on the overall ease of doing business in 10 indicators like governmental regulation of doing business including the time and cost of business opening, trans-border trade, taxes and business closing.The report says that Sub-Saharan Africa has had a record year in regulatory reforms that make it easier to do business, with 28 countries completing 58 reforms. It says Senegal, the region’s leading reformer, reduced business start-up time from 58 days to eight, when it streamlined business registration and merged seven start-up procedures into one.

This resulted in an 80 percent increase in new business registrations in the first 10 months after the reform.
Senegal made it easier to start a business, register property, and trade across borders while Burkina Faso introduced a new labour code and reforms in registering property, dealing with construction permits, and paying taxes.

Botswana cut the time to start a business, facilitated trade, and strengthened investor protection. Post-conflict countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, along with Rwanda, were among the regions’ most active reformers of business regulations. The report says that Mauritius moved up to 24 in the global rankings on the regulatory ease of doing business and continues to provide inspiration for reform and good practices to other economies across Africa. The runner-up in the overall rankings is South Africa at 32, followed by Botswana at 38.

Regulations
“With more reforms of business regulations in Africa than in any previous year, we are seeing many countries get inspiration from their neighbours about how to reform,” said Sabine Hertveldt, a co-author of the report.
“Increasingly, countries in the region are committing to reform agendas that make it easier to do business,” she added.

Doing Business ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macro-economic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates.

Among regions, Eastern Europe and Central Asia led in reforms of business regulation for a fifth consecutive year, with more than 90 percent of countries in the regions making improvements.Singapore leads the global rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third consecutive year. New Zealand is runner-up, and the United States third. Bahrain and Mauritius join the ranks of the top 25 this year.

“Economies need rules that are efficient, easy to use, and accessible to all who have to use them. Otherwise, businesses get trapped in the unregulated, informal economy, where they have less access to finance and hire fewer workers, and where workers lack the protection of labour law,” said Michael Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development. “Doing Business encourages good rules, and good rules are a better basis for healthy business than ‘who you know,’” he added.

Doing Business 2009 ranks 181 economies on the overall ease of doing business with Mauritius as the only country in the top 25. The top 25 in descending order are: Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong (China), Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Finland, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Bahrain, Belgium, Malaysia, Switzerland, Estonia, Korea, Mauritius and Germany.

Photo: World Bank Vice President for the Africa region, Ms Obiageli Ezekweli (centre) talks with a farmer (right) and Cote d’Ivoire’s Economy and Finance Minister Charles Diby Koffi at a cocoa field in the village of Tanokro in Tiassale, about 150 km from Abidjan. The bank has named countries leading in business reforms in Africa. Photo/ REUTERS