via Zim least conducive for new business: Report – NewsDay Zimbabwe December 14, 2015
Zimbabwe has been ranked as one of the least countries conducive for starting and conducting business, a new report has shown.
BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
According to a Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) landscape study conducted by Microsoft and a South African research firm, Thinkroom, Zimbabwe was one of the least out of 12 African countries to start a business.
Zimbabwe had 25%, followed by Ethiopia 30%, Uganda 31%, Nigeria 40% and Kenya 47%.
The top five African countries were Mauritius with 79%, South Africa 78%, Botswana 65%, Namibia 62% and Rwanda 59%, in terms of having a conducive environment.
According to the study, Zimbabwe was also ranked 171 in the overall ease of doing business out of 189 economies.
However, the World Bank Doing Business report, published in October this year, recorded Zimbabwe at position 155 out of 189 countries under the doing business index.
Official figures show that Zimbabwe’s foreign direct investment leapt to $545 million in 2014 — less than 5% of the country’s gross domestic product — from $400m in the previous year, driven by interest in mining, infrastructure and services, but still lagging behind regional rivals.
The World Bank Doing Business report tracks the regulatory and bureaucratic systems of nations by conducting detailed annual surveys.
The report further showed that by region, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 30% of the improved global regulatory reforms and half of the world’s top 10 improvers.
“Zimbabwe ranks 155th out of 189 economies on the Ease of Doing Business ranking globally and scores 48,17 points on the overall distance to frontier score. This represents an increase of 16 places on the ranking compared to last year’s published data,” the World Bank report said.
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