South Africa leads the pack in Africa on the Ease of Doing Business

On Wednesday the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) released the "2012 Doing Business Report. The 200 page report highlights the remarkable progress made by the economies in the Sub-Saharan Africa region on the ease of doing business. It reports that a large number of economies in Sub-Saharan Africa reformed business regulations in 2010-11. Over the past year a record number of governments in Sub-Saharan Africa changed their economy’s regulatory environment to make it easier for domestic firms to start up and operate. In a region where relatively little attention was paid to the regulatory environment only 8 years ago, regulatory reforms making it easier to do business were implemented in 36 of 46 economies between June 2010 and May 2011. That represents 78% of economies in the region, compared with an average of 56% over the previous 6 years. The report sub-titled: "doing business in a more transparent world," compared regulation for domestic firms in the 183 economies sampled.

Amid this remarkable progress and improvement, there remains a huge gap for the region to match its peers from other emerging markets in order to attract investments for growing the economies. South Africa was the first to emerge at the top in Africa as it was ranked 35. It was closely followed by Tunisia (40) and Ghana (63). Nigeria retained its 133rd position. Nigeria's perennial epileptic power system was also affirmed in the report as the country ranked 176th in getting electricity for local businesses. Nigeria also ranked 116th on the 'ease of starting a business' while South Africa ranked 44 and Ghana 104. The electricity challenge seem to be the characteristics of SSA. South Africa ranked 124 on 'getting electricity' for local businesses. 

On 'rankings on the ease of doing business,' Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, United States and Denmark were the top most countries in that order, while Chad was the last as the country slipped from the 182 it was in 2011, to 183 this year. Explaining how the top 20 economies manage business regulation, the report said: "The 20 economies with the most business friendly regulation as reflected in their ranking on the ease of doing business are Singapore; Hong Kong SAR, China; New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Norway; the United Kingdom; the Republic of Korea; Iceland; Ireland; Finland; Saudi Arabia; Canada; Sweden; Australia; Georgia; Thailand; Malaysia; Germany; and Japan. The 200 page report added: "Only 2 decades ago some of these 20 economies faced challenges similar to those in many lower-income economies today."