BD moves one spot up but Afghanistan eclipses it

Bangladesh notched one spot up, rising to the 176th place, in the World Bank's annual ranking of the economies for their ease of doing business, but war-tattered Afghanistan managed to outshine it.
Indeed, the country became the worst performer in South Asia as Afghanistan saw its ranking climb from the 183rd to the 167th in a year.
The "Doing Business 2019" report, released by the World Bank on Wednesday, ranked 190 countries globally.
Bangladesh ranked 177th last year's ease of doing business index from 176th in 2016.
While the country regains position from two years ago it remains far behind in significant improvement in business climate.
Though Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) targets securing a place below 100th by 2021 in the index, the latest position puts a big question mark on achieving the ambitious target in just four years.
The index is based on 10 main pillars or sub-indices. On 'starting a business,' the country's position deteriorated to 138th this year from 131st in the past year. According to the latest report, it takes at least 19.5 days on an average to start a business in the country.
"This is not unusual as digitisation of different things is not working properly," said Shaquib Quoreshi, an independent business consultant. "To start a business venture, a number of papers and documents are required. Though there are online facilities, in most cases one has to get it done manually."
He also said that underhand dealings and bribes are still prevalent, which increases the cost of doing business.
"Rent-seeking behaviour at functional level and difficulties in contract enforcement are two main reasons behind the dismal ranking," he added.
Although Bangladesh's position deteriorated in six out of 10 sub-indices and remained unchanged in one sub-index, the improvement in remaining three sub-indices pushed the overall ranking one step forward.
Getting electricity becomes easier along with registering properties and paying of taxes in the last survey period contributed to the improvement in the overall business scenario.
The report attributed the country's marginal improvement to trade facilitation measures.
"Bangladesh has identified its top priorities for trade facilitation as capacity building activities at ports and customs offices as well as communicating with relevant actors to ensure the proper adoption of regulations," it added.
New Zealand tops the index, followed by Singapore and Denmark while Somalia got the tag of being the worst country in the ease of doing business in the world.
The economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2019 are Afghanistan, Djibouti, China, Azerbaijan, India, Togo, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Turkey and Rwanda.
India's ranking jumped from 100th to 77th, reflecting positive outcome of a series of reform initiatives to do business smoothly.
Pakistan also improved its ranking by advancing 10 steps to 137th from last year's 147.
Data in Doing Business 2019 are current as of May 1, 2018.
Themed "Training for Reform," the report examines the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain.

[email protected]