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Tanzania among sites of intense business reforms -World Bank report
2006-09-08 09:22:35
By Guardian Reporter
Tanzania has been named among sites of intense reforms to business regulations in Africa, according to an annual World Bank Report ranking business climates in 175 countries.
A US embassy press statement issued in Dar es Salaam yesterday says Tanzania, which introduced electronic-data interchange and risk-based inspections at customs, reduced the time it takes to clear imports by nearly two weeks.
The statement said in the previous two years’ rankings, the region lagged behind all others in the pace of reforming unwieldy regulations.
“Yet the bank’s Doing Business 2007 report released on September 5, says Africa now ranks third among regions, behind only Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the wealthy Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries,” reads the statement, in part, adding:
“Two-thirds of African countries made at least one important regulatory reform to spur economic growth,” according to the report.
Cote d’Ivore, according to the statement, reduced the time it takes to transfer property to 32 days from more than a year.
Burkina Faso, it adds, cut the number of procedures for starting a business by one-third. Madagascar reduced the minimum capital for start-ups from 10 million francs to 2 million francs.
However, it says, there was little change among those countries that had the highest ranking in Doing Business 2006.
“The top three positions in terms of the ease of doing business continued to be held by Singapore, New Zealand and the United States,” it reads.
It further explains that there was much more movement in the lower tiers of the list. Within a year, Georgia climbed from the 112th to the 37th position.
Mexico jumped from the 62nd to the 43rd and is credited with one of the boldest reforms - increasing investor protections in its new securities law.
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