Qatar ranks third in Mena in Doing Business

Date

9/24/2015 2:49:48 AM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)

BY SACHIN KUMAR

DOHA: Qatar has ranked third in Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region in the ‘Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency’ report released recently by the World Bank. The United Arab Emirates ranked first while Saudi Arabia came second in the report which ranked countries in terms of ease of doing business.

Globally the report showed that Singapore was the best country in the world to do business. New Zealand emerged second followed by Hong Kong. Denmark Norway United States United Kingdom Finland and Austria were ranked the top 10 countries. Qatar was ranked 50th in the overall global ranking. A higher score in the report indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions.

“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 World Bank said that the report found 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.

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.

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