via Zim tumbles on World Bank rankings – DailyNews Live by Roadwin Chirara 31 OCTOBER 2013
Zimbabwe has declined two positions to 170 out of 185 countries on the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank 2014 report.
Despite the implementation of the midterm policy as its economic blue print for the past two years, the country has continued to fare poorly on most indicators, raking 150 on starting a business,170 on dealing with construction permits, getting electricity 157, trading across borders 167, enforcing contracts 118 and 156 on resolving insolvency.
“According to data collected by Doing Business, starting a business there requires nine procedures, takes 90 days, costs 141,2 percent of income per capita and requires paid-in minimum capital of 0,0 percent of income per capita,” the WB report noted.
“Globally, Zimbabwe stands at 109 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of getting credit.”
The country however, improved by 1,46 percentage points to 42,12 percentage points on the distance to frontier (DTF) measure.
DTF shows the distance of each economy to the “frontier,” which represents the highest performance observed on each of the topics including getting electricity across all economies included in Doing Business.
Singapore and Hong Kong rank as the world’s best places to run a business, with New Zealand, the United States and Denmark making up the top five.
The Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic and Chad were the five worst ranked countries.
The report measures the ease of starting a business in an economy by recording all procedures officially required or commonly done in practice by an industrial or commercial business.
Zimbabwe is currently recovering from a decade of economic stagnation and has struggled to attract foreign direct investment with a paltry $400 million coming through last year, compared to neighbouring countries, Mozambique and South Africa which got $5 billion and $4,6 billion respectively due to policy inconsistencies and a lack of investor confidence.
The WB report is however, expected to be reviewed after a finding by an independent panel set up by the WB president, Jim Yong Kim and led by South Africa’s Planning minister Trevor Manuel, found it could be misleading and should cease being produced.
According to the findings, the rankings could too easily be affected by small factors and were sometimes not objective.
Instead of a ranking, the panel has recommended assigning scores for each of the indicators for each country.
COMMENTS
The 89-year-old monster, in power since 1980, secured 61% of the vote while his main political nemesis, MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai got a paltry 34%. Tsvangirai said Mugabe rigged the poll in his favour. Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu) said the country was heading for an economic disaster as Zanu PF would continue to pursue the policy of indigenisation which discourages foreign investment and employment creation. The union said the policy was only benefiting youths with links to Zanu PF. Zinasu national spokesperson, Zechariah Mushawatu said the unemployment rate was going to worsen under the new Zanu PF administration.
“Unless the new government takes austerity measures to resolve the [economic] issues, the country’s unemployment rate will continue to escalate. More university graduates will continue to pervade the streets in desperate pursuit for better living conditions,” said Mushawatu. The country’s unemployment rate tops 85% and more people are becoming jobless every day as more firms shut down citing harsh economic conditions.” Students have already lost hope, the number of unemployed youths is rising up and there is no hope that things will change for the better in the next five years. A lot of students have been disadvantaged by the indigenisation law which only empowers a few individuals; again the law scares away investors,” said Mushawatu.
Now I see why Mugabe send his daughter to study in Singapore and why he always goes to Singapore and Hong Kong for his medication and other private business. It is easy to do business in these countries and difficult to do the same back home. Why can’t he make it easy here in Zim for the benefit of every Zimbabwean and himself.