Doing business in Bangladesh slips 2 notches

Getting electricity, registering property and enforcing contracts are the worst issues in doing business in Bangladesh, according to the World Bank’s ranking.

Its latest report on doing business has placed Bangladesh at 174th position among 189 economies around the world.

The country is at the bottom in accessing electricity (189th) and enforcing contract (188th) and also ranks poorly at 185th position in registering property, said the global agency’s “Doing Business-DirectoryBusiness 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency” published on Wednesday (according to Bangladesh standard time).

“Enforcing a contract through the courts can take … almost 4 years in Bangladesh,” observed the report.

The 2015 report, published in 2014, gave the country’s overall ranking in ease of doing business at 173rd position. The WB report focusses on regulations and regulatory processes involved in setting up and operating a business.

Based on eight indicators, the latest ranking showed that Bangladesh performed better in paying taxes (86th) and protecting minority investors (88th).

“Bangladesh made paying taxes less costly for companies by reducing the corporate income tax rate. This reform applies to both Chittagong and Dhaka,” the WB report pointed out.

The country stands at 117th position in starting a business, 118th in dealing with construction permits, and 133rd in getting credit.

Overall, Bangladesh scored 43.10 points in the ranking, compared the 87.34 points scored by Singapore, the best performer in terms of having the most business-friendly regulation in the world. New Zealand, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, Norway and Finland are the other top 10 countries.

Eritrea, Libya, South Sudan, Venezuela, Central African Republic, Congo, Chad, Haiti, Angola and Equatorial Guinea are the bottom countries in the list.

Among the countries in Bangladesh’s neighbourhood, Myanmar ranked 167th, Pakistan 138th, India 130th, Sri Lanka 107th, Nepal 99thh, China 84th and Bhutan 71st.

The WB report also made a mention of the collapse of Rana Plaza in April 2013 that claimed more than 1,000 lives, as the accident “resulted from a lack of the necessary quality control mechanisms”.

In the global context, the report said, developing economies quickened the pace of their business reforms during the last 12 months to make it easier for local businesses to start and operate.

As many as 85 developing economies implemented 169 business reforms during the past year, compared with 154 reforms the previous year, the report added. “High-income economies carried out an additional 62 reforms, bringing the total for the past year to 231 reforms in 122 economies around the world.”

In South Asia, six of the region’s eight economies implemented a total of nine reforms – the second largest share of any region after Europe and Central Asia, the report said. Economies that implemented several reforms included India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The region’s highest ranked economy is Bhutan.

Courtesy: Prothom Alo


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