Bangladesh has moved up eight spots to 168 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index 2020 from the previous position of 176, according to the recent report by the World Bank Group.
New Zealand topped the Ease of Doing Business Index with the score of 86.8 followed by Singapore, Hong kong, Denmark and Korea Republic. Bangladesh is among the 20 economies that have seen progress in at least three out of ten areas of the ease of doing business for the last year.
The country made it bringing about three reforms during the past year, the most in a decade, the World Bank Group said in its Doing Business 2020 study released in Washington on Thursday.
The three reform areas are – starting a business, getting electricity and access to finance.
Bangladesh made starting a business less expensive by reducing name clearance and registration fees and abolishing the fee for certifying digital certificates. This reform applies to both Dhaka and Chittagong. However, the Doing Business 2020 study stressed the need for Bangladesh to accelerate the reform pace to further improve its regional and global competitiveness.
Bangladesh also made getting electricity faster by investing in digitization and human capital. In Dhaka, obtaining an electrical connection has become more efficient as the city invested in digitisation and human capital. At the same time, the country reduced the amount of the security deposit required for a new connection.
Access to credit information was also improved by expanding coverage by the credit information bureau. This reform delivered Bangladesh’s most significant improvement in the ease of doing business.
“Improving the business environment is essential for Bangladesh to support private sector development, which will create more jobs and foster sustainable economic growth,” said Mercy Miyang Tembon, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh.
“It would be important for Bangladesh to build on the recent achievement and further accelerate regulatory reform efforts to continue to improve the business climate.”
Bangladesh has so far made 15 reforms since the inception of the Doing Business study in 2003/04, but still lags behind other economies in South Asia. Pakistan, and India have been named among the ten economies where business climates improved the most, the report showed.
In South Aisa, India topped the index ranking at 63 from previous position of 77 followed by Bhutan at 89, Nepal at 94, Sri Lanka at 99 and Pakistan at 108 position. Afghanistan became the last in the list positioned at 173. Among the countries, Pakistan improved the most moving up by 28 position.
The World Bank’s latest edition of the Ease of Doing Business study documents reforms implemented in 10 areas of business activity in 190 economies over a 12-month period ending May 1, 2019.
Meanwhile, Salman F Rahman, prime minister’s adviser on private industry and investment, said that this is the first time Bangladesh made such a huge jump. However, he reconfirmed that taking rankings to double digit should be the target for the country.
