Ghana Drops In Doing Business Rankings

Ghana dropped four places from 60th position to 63rd position in the latest rankings of countries across the world in terms of doing business. The country slipped in seven out of the 10 indicators that tracked the time and cost involved in meeting government requirements in starting and operating businesses, a document sighted by CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE revealed. They were Dealing with Construction of Permits which the nation slipped four places to occupy 156th position out of 183 nations; Registering Property, ranked 36; Getting Credit, ranked 48 and Trading Across Border ranked 90. Ghana, a lower middle-income country, also went down 38 places to occupy 90th position in terms of Paying Taxes. It slipped from 44th to 46th position with regard to Protecting Investors and retreated from 85th to 104th position in Starting a Business. The report revealed that businesses went through cumbersome processes before securing licenses. For instance they spent seven days at the metropolitan authority, while it took 90 days before they obtained building permit from the Town and Country Planning Department. The nation only made strong showing in Getting Electricity where it moved six places up to 68th position and Resolving Insolvency where it also shot up from the 115th position in 2010 to 106 in 2011. It was however ranked the fifth nation on the African continent where firms can easily do business. Mauritius was the highest ranked African country at 23rd position followed by South Africa ranked 35th and Botswana ranked 54th. The 2012 World Bank/International Finance Corporation Doing Business report released yesterday ranked 183 countries around the world who have improved the environment for local businesses especially to thrive. Dubbed �Doing Business 2012: Doing Business in a More Transparent World,� the 2012 report assessed regulations affecting domestic firms in 183 economies and ranked the countries in 10 areas of business regulation such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders. Across sub-Saharan Africa, regulatory reform has been broadening, with 13 economies implementing reforms to make it easy to do business in three or more areas, the World Bank said. Singapore, East Asian country was the highest ranked country in the world followed by Hong Kong, East Asian country, New Zealand, USA and Denmark. The lowest ranked countries were Guinea, Eritrea, Congo, Central Africa Republic and Chad, which are all African nations. This year�s report covered regulations measured from June 2010 through May 2011. The rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2011.