Sri Lanka expects to get into ’70s’ in Doing Business Ranking Index
The Central Bank (CB) is expecting to get into the ’70s’ in the Doing Business Index ranking for 2013, which will be released by the WB.
World Bank later this month, CB officials said.
“The Doing Business Index compiled by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation will be released on 23rd October by the World Bank and we expect to be in the 70s this time,” a CB official told the Business Times. Sri Lanka ranked 105 of 183 countries in 2010, was able to improve the ranking to 98 in 2011 and was make a tangible progress this year by achieving a ranking of 89. WB focuses on three areas when measuring ease of doing business – namely the number of procedures, the time taken to complete them, and the costs involved.
The official said that this year Sri Lanka has improved in many areas – especially in the 10 areas of ‘starting a business’ categorised in the index. “The number of days for a company to obtain EPF and ETF numbers for their employees which took some 30 days earlier, only takes a day now. This is because the Department of Labour has electronised their systems,” he explained. He said that starting a business in Sri Lanka has reduced from 36 days to six days as a result.
The directive by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2010 on related party disclosures has helped Sri Lanka climb the index last year. Doing business measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. This index also benchmarks regulations applicable to domestic, small to medium-size businesses through their life cycle. The official stressed that while there’s no ranking system that is perfect, what is more important is the progress in reforms in a bid to have material improvements in the regulatory framework and systems to ease business processes.
The WB annually publishes a ranking of over 180 countries on the basis of the ease of doing business in those countries. International investors widely consult this ranking before investing in a country.
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