Washington, D.C., October 29, 2014—A
new World Bank Group report finds that amid unrest in the Middle East and
North Africa, local entrepreneurs faced challenging circumstances in the
past year. While several economies improved the business environment for
local firms—such as the United Arab Emirates, among this year’s 10 top
global improvers—the pace of regulatory reform in the region was
comparatively slow.
Released today, Doing Business 2015:
Going Beyond Efficiency finds that 11 economies in the Middle East
and North Africa reformed in at least one area tracked by the report in
2013/14: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Jordan, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates,
and West Bank and Gaza. With 55 percent of the region’s economies reforming
business regulations—compared with 60 percent in East Asia and the Pacific
and 74 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa—the scope of business regulatory
reforms remained narrow. The reforms did not span all areas measured by
Doing Business, such as enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
In the past year, economies in the region
implemented the most regulatory reforms in the area of trade. Algeria and
Jordan improved port infrastructure, thereby reducing port and terminal
handling time, while Morocco reduced the number of documents required for
exporting. Such reforms are leading to tangible benefits for entrepreneurs.
A decade ago, it took a Moroccan entrepreneur 17 days to export goods from
her country; today, it takes her only 10 days—the same as it would in
Austria.
“While regional unrest continues
to roil the Middle East and North Africa, several economies in the region
have made notable efforts to improve their business environment,”
said Rita Ramalho, Doing Business report lead author, World Bank
Group. “In the past year, the United Arab Emirates improved its business
environment the most in the region across multiple areas captured by the
report, making it one of the 10 top global improvers. It enhanced the administrative
efficiency of its land registry, improved access to credit information,
and strengthened minority investor protections.”
The report this year expands the data
for three of the 10 topics covered, and there are plans to do so for five
more topics next year. In addition, the ease of doing business ranking
is now based on the distance to frontier score. This measure shows how
close each economy is to global best practices in business regulation.
A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger
legal institutions.
The report finds that Singapore tops
the global ranking on the ease of doing business. Joining it on the list
of the top 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulatory environments
are New Zealand; Hong Kong SAR, China; Denmark; the Republic of Korea;
Norway; the United States; the United Kingdom; Finland; and Australia.
About the Doing Business report series
The annual World Bank Group flagship
Doing Business report analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s
businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations,
trading across borders, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency. The aggregate
ease of doing business rankings are based on the distance to frontier scores
for 10 topics and cover 189 economies. Doing Business does not measure
all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors.
For example, it does not measure the quality of fiscal management, other
aspects of macroeconomic stability, the level of skills in the labor force,
or the resilience of financial systems. Its findings have stimulated policy
debates worldwide and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level
regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies. Each year the
report team works to improve the methodology and to enhance their data
collection, analysis and output. The project has benefited from feedback
from many stakeholders over the years. With a key goal to provide an objective
basis for understanding and improving the local regulatory environment
for business around the world, the project goes through rigorous reviews
to ensure its quality and effectiveness. This year’s report marks the
12th edition of the global Doing Business report series. For more
information about the Doing Business reports, please visit doingbusiness.org
and join us on doingbusiness.org/Facebook.
About the World Bank Group
The World Bank Group plays a key role
in the global effort to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.
It consists of five institutions: the World Bank, including the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development
Association (IDA); the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral
Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement
of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Working together in more than 100 countries,
these institutions provide financing, advice, and other solutions that
enable countries to address the most urgent challenges of development.
For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org,
www.miga.org,
and ifc.org.
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