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November 7, 2007 Country Ranks Among 50 Top Reformers By Emma Kakololo, Windhoek, New Era None of the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) member states have made it to the top 10 positions of business reformers worldwide, despite reforms to attract foreign direct investment to the region. The top business reformer globally is Egypt, while West African regional block ECOWAS' Ghana has been ranked third and East African Community state Kenya, eighth, according to a report by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Georgia, the top reformer last year, remains in the top 10 with countries such as Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, China and Bulgaria. Doing Business 2008 is the fifth in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. The report presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 178 economies-from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe- between April 2006 and June 2007. Regulations affecting 10 stages of a business's life are measured: starting a business, dealing with licences, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business. During this period, 24 African countries implemented 49 reforms. However, in the regional rankings on the pace of reform, Africa fell from third to fifth place, after being overtaken by South Asia and the Middle East. Mauritius, with six reforms, tops the rankings in Africa on the ease of doing business and is placed 27 worldwide; South Africa is 35, Namibia 43, Botswana 51 and Kenya 72. The report states that starting a business is not easy in the Democratic Republic of Congo and takes 13 procedures and 155 days-and it costs five times the annual income per capita. The situation is even worse for women as they need the husband's consent to start a business while for a single woman, a judge, decides whether she is able to become a businesswoman. Mauritius, the region's most business-friendly country, made it even easier to do business, in part by simplifying taxes. A three-year programme has been established to harmonise the tax system and will ultimately create a single corporate rate with few credits or tax holidays. Other reforms reduced the property registration fee to five percent of the property value and simplified construction permits |
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