A new International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank report finds that economies continued to implement reforms that enhance local firms’ ability to do business, with transparency and access to information playing a key role in the reforms.

Released last Thursday, "Doing Business 2012: Doing Business in a More Transparent World" assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in 183 economies and ranks the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders.

This year's report data cover regulations measured from June 2010 through May 2011. The report rankings on ease of doing business have expanded to include indicators on getting electricity.

The case of Haiti

This report shows that last year Haiti was ranked 166th and that this year the country is ranked 174th out of 183, a decline of 8 places. It is also mentioned that no reform of business regulation has been made, while 125 among 183 economies surveyed have implemented a total of 245 reforms.

• For starting a business, Haiti ranks 180th out of 183, with 12 procedures taking 105 days

• Dealing with construction permits is ranked 139th, with 9 procedures taking 1.129 days

  Note : It is stated in the report that Haiti made dealing with construction permits costlier by increasing the fees to obtain a building permit

• Getting electricity, Haiti is ranked 75th, with four procedures that take 66 days

• Registering property, is ranked 131st, with 5 procedures that take 301 days

• Getting credit, is ranked 159th

• Concerning the protection of investors Haiti is ranked 166th

• Regarding trading across borders Haiti is ranked 145th, 8 documents are required for export, the average time is 33 days, while it is necessary to import to have 10 documents and 31 days are needed

About the Doing Business report series

Doing Business analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 183 economies. Previous year’s rankings are back-calculated to account for the addition of new indicator(s), data corrections, and methodology changes in existing indicators so as to provide a meaningful comparison with the new rankings.

Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors. For example, it does not measure security, macroeconomic stability, corruption, the level of skills, or the strength of financial systems. Neither the particular case of Haiti, who had undergone the January 2010 earthquake, the absence of a functioning government, the troubled period of elections, the cholera epidemic and the political crisis before the establishment of the new government...

We remain convinced that in the next issue, the Government of Haiti will allow the country to make a significant jump forward in the ranking of the economies.

HL/ HaitiLibre