Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 01:07 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Oct
23, Washington, DC: Sri Lanka is one of the ten economies in the world that are
improving the most in the ease of doing business, according to a new global
survey by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank comparing
185 countries.
Climbing
eight places from 89th to be ranked at the 81st place to do business Sri Lanka
for the first time in 7 years ranked among those improving the most in the ease
of doing business according to "Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations
for Small and Medium-Size enterprises" report released Tuesday.
Sri
Lanka ranked 105 of 183 countries in 2010, 98 in 2011 and made a tangible
improvement in 2012 by achieving a ranking of 89.
Sri
Lanka has implemented reforms making it easier to do business - starting a
business, registering property, getting credit, trading across borders.
Sri
Lanka has made starting a business easier by computerizing and expediting the
process of obtaining a registration number for the Employees Provident Fund and
Employees Trust Fund and cutting time by 29 days.
Creating
a unified registry for movable property Sri Lanka has made registering property
faster by introducing an electronic system at the land registry in Colombo.
Sri
Lanka has strengthened its secured transactions system by establishing an
electronic, searchable collateral registry and issuing regulations for its
operation and made getting credit easier. The reforms have made it easy to get
credit by distributing data on loans below 1% of income per capita.
Automation
has continued to play an important part in facilitating the processing and clearance
of goods in many economies. In the past year by implementing the ASYCUDA World
electronic data interchange system, a computerized customs management system
that allows web-based submission of customs declarations, Sri Lanka has reduced
the time to export and made trading across borders easier.
Sri
Lanka has also computerized and expedited the process for registering
employees.
According
to the 2013 Doing Business report South Asia has been the least active in
strengthening investor protections. Over the past 8 years Doing Business
recorded 3 investor protection reforms among the region's 8 economies - in
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
However,
Sri Lanka is one of the countries that are slowest to enforce contracts easy
taking 1,318 days.
The
Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) under its Doing Business improvement programme
has been engaged in an exercise since 2009 under the guidance of the Ministry
of Economic Development to improve country's relative international ranking
position substantially in order to successfully attract foreign investment.
In
the South Asian region Maldives ranked at 95th place, Pakistan at 107th, Nepal
at 108th, and India at 132nd place.
The
10 economies with the most business-friendly regulation are Singapore, Hong
Kong SAR, China, New Zealand, the United States, Denmark, Norway, the United
Kingdom, South Korea, Georgia, and Australia.
Doing
Business 2013 report investigates the regulations that enhance business
activity and those that constrain it and presents quantitative indicators on
business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared
across 185 economies and over time.
Regulations
affecting 11 areas of the life of a business are covered in the report. They
are, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting
electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying
taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and
employing workers.
The
Data in Doing Business 2013, current as of June 1, 2012 are used to analyze
economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked,
where and why.
