Ghana Improves In 3 Business Areas – Flops In 7

Ghana Improved in only three out of the 10 areas of business regulation surveyed by the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ report for 2013.

It registered good ratings in the areas of getting electricity, resolving insolvency and getting credit categories while also it made significant progress in getting credit by improving 15 places to reach the 23rd position.

Ghana thus placed 5th on the African continent behind Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa and Mauritius but dropped one place to the 64th position out of 185 countries.

It dropped eight places to the 112th position in the Starting a Business category.

To start a business in Ghana currently, it will take 12 days to do so and the cost is 18.5 percent of income per capita, according to the report.

Ghana again dropped three places to the 49th position in the area of protecting investors. It also slipped in trading across borders, dropping from the 98th position it occupied last year to the 99th this year.

The report additionally found that payments of taxes in the country have also increased as compared to last year. Businesses are now making 32 payments a year pushing Ghana to the 89th position from the 80th position it occupied last year.

Processes in registering property in the country have become more cumbersome than before.

On the average it takes 34 days to register a property pushing Ghana from the 37th position it occupied last year to the 45th position.

Themed: “Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises,” the new report assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in selected economies and ranks them in ten areas of business regulation.

This year’s report data encompasses regulations measured from June 2011 through May 2012.

Singapore topped the global ranking on the ease of doing business for the seventh consecutive year followed by Hong Kong SAR, China, New Zealand, the United States and Denmark.

Source: Samuel Boadi/Daily Guide