EASE OF DOING BUSINESS INDEX: Bangladesh comes last in South Asia

[Black_cats]

12:00 AM, November 01, 2018 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:50 AM, November 01, 2018
EASE OF DOING BUSINESS INDEX
Bangladesh comes last in South Asia

https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/bangladesh-comes-last-south-asia-1654666

Rejaul Karim Byron

Bangladesh ranked 176th out of 190 countries in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business index this year, which is the lowest ranking for a South Asian nation -- an alarming development given the government's claims of reforms to improve the score.

The Washington-based multilateral lender's Doing Business report, which was published yesterday, sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-sized business when complying with relevant regulations.

The report points out changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: 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.

Although Bangladesh's ranking has gone up one notch this time, its score in seven out of the indicators has deteriorated compared to last year.

Bangladesh's grade registered major fall in: starting a business (138 from last year's 131), getting credit (161 from 159 last year), protecting minority investors (89 from 76 last year), dealing with construction permit (138 from 130 last year), and trading across borders (176 from 173 last year).

There were improvements in the areas of getting electricity (179 from 185 last year), registering property (183 from 185 last year) and paying taxes (151 from last year's 152), which pulled up Bangladesh one notch this year.

Its grade remained the same in enforcing contract and resolving solvency although the scores were lower than last year.

The government has been pursuing reforms to improve Bangladesh's ranking by developing indicator-specific action plans, said Zahid Hussain, lead economist at the WB's Dhaka office.

“Despite these, the ranking has not improved much yet because of limited progress in implementation.”

Moving forward, the government will need to speed up implementation through stronger demonstration of high level commitment, regular follow-up, better interagency coordination and effective accountability mechanisms, he added.

Last year, among the eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh was only ahead of Afghanistan. But this year, the war-torn country too left Bangladesh behind: it came in at 167th in contrast to 183rd last year.

India ranked the highest in South Asia this year, at 77th.

The top five countries on the list are New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong and Korea. The worst five performers are Somalia, Eritrea, Venezuela, Yemen and Libya.

 

[RealNapster]

Our (Pakistan) aim is to be among top 99 (For now), as per IK’s plan/vision. But its hard to believe such a ranking of bangladesh. I was expecting more like 60-70. Can bangladeshi members comment on this and explain ?

 

[Imran Khan]

be optimist see you have 1 notch up side

 

[Pakistansdefender]

Our (Pakistan) aim is to be among top 99 (For now), as per IK’s plan/vision. But its hard to believe such a ranking of bangladesh. I was expecting more like 60-70. Can bangladeshi members comment on this and explain ?

Bangladesh has no image problem.
Anyone can go their without any thoughts, but our PR is reaally bad even after achieving the impossible.
Many great countries have been destroyed and yet Pakistan has been rescued from this meance but our leaders have not been able to capitalize it.
Only differnce between Bangladesh and Pakistan is that. If Pakistan image has been good, no one would even spit on Bangladesh any day.

 

[Homo Sapiens]

Only differnce between Bangladesh and Pakistan is that. If Pakistan image has been good, no one would even spit on Bangladesh any day.

What a boasting!! I did not know Business happening in Bangladesh at the expense of Pakistan.

 

[Anubis]

Bangladesh has no image problem.
Anyone can go their without any thoughts, but our PR is reaally bad even after achieving the impossible.
Many great countries have been destroyed and yet Pakistan has been rescued from this meance but our leaders have not been able to capitalize it.
Only differnce between Bangladesh and Pakistan is that. If Pakistan image has been good, no one would even spit on Bangladesh any day.

Pakistan's image is horrific because the state of the country is horrific...you fund terrorists and they bite you back...it has nothing to do with PR...no amount of PR can save Pakistan..You think Bangladesh takes out ads on foreign tv to show how good we are? Or you think we pay foreign reporters to write good things about us? PR isn't even an issue for you...a polished turd is still a turd.

 

[mb444]

Our (Pakistan) aim is to be among top 99 (For now), as per IK’s plan/vision. But its hard to believe such a ranking of bangladesh. I was expecting more like 60-70. Can bangladeshi members comment on this and explain ?

Starting a business formally is BD is problematic due to British era bureaucracy administered poorly, endemic graft and lack of adequate infrastructure. The result is not a particular surprise.

However there is a flip side... things are so bad people hardly bothers with any of the formalities. They get agents who navigate through the unofficial channels to get things done. Unfortunately these can not be measured within this formal context. Additionally hardly anyone pays formal tax.

So coming back to this ranking I fully believe it is an accurate reflection of BDs standing. GOB needs to take steps otherwise FDI levels will remain low like they have always been and GOB will continue to miss out on tax revenues.

Digitisation of the taxation services has started as has property and company registration etc. It will take time.

we currently have a completely unregulated, untaxed economy buoyed by immense demand that is growing exponentially. Now that BD has reached economic take off control is necessary to direct and control this wild beast. Without structured regulatory framework BDs current economic momentum will falter...

 

[Homo Sapiens]

Bangladesh actually done quite well despite such poor ranking in Easy of doing business. Our business are mostly done by local enterpreneurs who are doing business by giving middle finger to rules and regulation and bypassing many hurdle with their commitment to do business at any situation. So despite such a poor ranking, our investment to GDP ratio is quite satisfactory and propelling the country forward with a high industrial output growth. But this ranking is very important to attract FDI. Foreign investors want a clear guideline, security of their investment in an alien environment, rapid profit making. This is in quite contrast with local businessmen, who know the risks and opportunities, thrive in less transparent environment, has a long term commitment as they are citizen of Bangladesh and their business roots are here. But we have to greatly improve in this ranking if we want to attract FDI and do not hit the ceiling of growth at earlier point of time.

 

[Black_cats]

03:30 PM, November 01, 2018 / LAST MODIFIED: 04:14 PM, November 01, 2018
Bangladesh needs more reforms to make doing business easier: WB

https://www.thedailystar.net/busine...rt-2019-bangladesh-needs-more-reforms-1654768

UNB, Dhaka

Although the country has taken some initiatives to make doing business easier, the marginal change in Bangladesh's position in the World Bank Group's Doing Business 2019 report indicates that the pace of reforms needs to be increased significantly.

Economies in South Asia region made further gains to improve the ease of doing business for domestic, small and medium enterprises with Afghanistan and India ranked as top improvers, says the World Bank Group's Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform report, released on Wednesday.

Bangladesh continued to invest in the electricity grid over the past twelve months, it showed.

Since 2015, Bangladesh has increased the network capacity in Chittagong and Dhaka.

And as a result, the distribution utilities in both cities are now able to accommodate more connection requests, reducing the time required for businesses to obtain a new electricity connection, from more than 400 days in 2014, to less than 150 days in 2018.

However, Bangladesh still ranks 176 globally; one place up from last year's ranking of 177.

A total of 19 business reforms were carried out in the region during the past year, the second highest ever, compared with previous year's revised record of 21 reforms.

In a first for South Asia, two of the region's economies have earned coveted spots in this year's global top improvers, India and Afghanistan.

India, which is a top improver for a second consecutive year, implemented six reforms in the past year and advanced to 77th place in the global ranking. India is now the region's top-ranked economy.

Afghanistan, a top improver for the first time, carried out a record five reforms, moving up to 167th rank, according to the report.

"These results from the Doing Business 2019 report are great news for South Asia and underscore the need to persist with challenging reforms that can provide more opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty and spread prosperity more widely," said Hartwig Schafer, Vice President for the South Asia Region of the World Bank.

"We're looking forward to working with governments in the region to achieve more gains in coming years."

The reforms in India included streamlining the process of obtaining a building permit and improved building quality controls.

The reform applies to both Delhi and Mumbai, the two cities covered by the Doing Business report.

Starting a Business was made easier through consolidation of multiple application forms and introduction of a Goods and Service Tax (GST), while Getting Electricity was made faster and cheaper.

Other reforms in India included strengthening access to credit as well as making it easier and faster to pay taxes and trade across borders.

Afghanistan enacted a new insolvency law, which strengthened access to credit and made resolving insolvency easier. Protections for minority investors were strengthened by increasing shareholder’s rights and role in major corporate decisions, clarifying ownership and control structures and requiring greater corporate transparency.

Afghanistan also made it easier to pay taxes and start a business.

Pakistan continued its strong reform agenda, with three reforms carried out in the past year. Registering Property was made easier in both Lahore and Karachi, the two cities covered in the Doing Business report.

Both cities also introduced reforms to make it easier to resolve insolvencies and register a new business.

Sri Lanka carried out four reforms which included making Dealing with Construction Permits easier, while the introduction of online systems made it easier to pay taxes in Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Sri Lanka advances to a global rank of 100 this year.

"South Asia continues on a strong reform agenda, thanks to political commitment and hard work that is involved in improving the domestic investment climate. This is particularly commendable in the case of Afghanistan, where conflict and insecurity make the work so much more challenging," said Rita Ramalho, Senior Manager of the World Bank's Global Indicators Group, which produces the report.

Doing Business includes gender dimensions in three indicators: Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts.

It finds that Afghanistan and Pakistan impose additional procedures for female entrepreneurs.

South Asian economies perform best in the areas of Protecting Minority Investors and Starting a Business. For example, it takes on average 14 days to register a new business in the region, compared with 20 days globally.

The region underperforms in the areas of Enforcing Contracts and Registering Property. In South Asia, registering a property takes 114 days, compared to 47 days on average globally.

Resolving a commercial dispute in the region takes 1102 days on average, almost twice the global average of 647 days.

Since Doing Business began in 2003, Starting a Business and Getting Credit have seen the most reforms in South Asia.

As a result, the average time to start a business in the region has dropped to 15 days, from 53 days in 2003, and the cost has been reduced to 12 percent of income per capita, from 47 percent.

Getting Credit became easier in South Asia partly due collateral and bankruptcy law reforms that improved legal protection of lenders' and borrowers' rights.

This year, Doing Business collected data on regulation setting standards for electrical installations.

A case study in the report, which analyzes this data, finds that a robust regulatory framework governing the electricity sector and the accreditation of the electrician profession protects public safety.

A second study finds that regular training for customs clearance officials and brokers results in lower border and documentary compliance times, easing the movement of goods across borders.

It finds that India has supported its ambitious reform agenda by providing regular training to both customs officials and private sector agents, as well as by establishing Customs Clearance Facilitation Committees which bring together actors involved in international trade at regular meetings.

Two other case studies focus on the benefits of training judges and public officials of business and land registries.