Kuwait ease-of-business up: WB – Rankings rise

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KUWAIT CITY, Oct 28, (Agencies): Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) said on Wednesday that World Bank Group report on Doing Business for 2016 showed a relative improvement in the position of Kuwait in the ease of doing business index.

Kuwait registered a relative increase in the distance to frontier (DTF) according to the 2016 report from 59.77 in 2015 to 60.17 in 2016, the KDIPA added in press remarks to KUNA.

The World Bank Group report explained that the improvement in Kuwait’s position is due to a number of reasons, including the Minister of Commerce and Industry’s decision number 239/2015, in favor of decreasing the minimum capital requirement of companies, it said.

This positive decision affected the cost of companies’ minimum capital, especially those of limited liability, as the cost dropped from 74 percent of per capita income in 2015 report, to 8.2 percent in 2016 report, KDIPA added.

Kuwait’s ranking in starting a business component improves from 150 to 148 among a list including 189 countries in the report, as the DTF increased from 71.28 percent to 75.37 percent, it mentioned.

Despite the relative enhancement in this component, the World Bank Group registers a slight decrease in Kuwait’s overall ranking from 100 in 2015 to 101 in 2016 report, it added.

Regarding the detailed data mentioned by the World Bank Group in its report according to its specialties, several improvements were monitored in the business environment in Kuwait, it said.

Among World Bank Group report on doing business 2016 improvements, we find a list of new indicators, building quality control index in issuance of construction licenses, as Kuwait reached 11, in a scale from 0 to 15 indicator, it added.

Within the getting electricity component, another indicator is the reliability of supply and transparency of tariff index in a scale from 0 to 8, as Kuwait recorded three.

In properties registration, overall quality of land administration index was newly listed in a scale 0 to 30, as Kuwait registered 17.5, it said.

In enforcing contacts, the quality of judicial processes index was listed in a scale from 0 to 18, and Kuwait ranked the 8th, it said.

Among the improvements in Kuwait’s business environment, services have been developed at a number of ministries and state bodies, it mentioned.

In the component of getting credit, credit bureau coverage increased from 32 percent in 2015 to 34.2 percent in 2016 report, out of the total adult population.

Meanwhile, regarding the credit registry coverage, Kuwait reached 15.3 in 2016, after only 10.8 percent in 2015 out of the total adult population.

This approach towards a better performance in the field of business enforces KDIPA towards exerting further efforts to achieve more improvements, in cooperation and coordinated with related bodies according to the new strategy followed by the World Bank Group.

Meanwhile, Singapore remains the easiest place to do business, while developing countries stepped up their pace of business-friendly reforms in the past year, according to the World Bank report.

 Singapore, the dynamic Asian city state, held onto its business-friendly top ranking from last year in the “Doing Business 2016”: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency” report, which covers 189 economies.

There were barely any changes in the report’s top 10, according to adjusted data using this year’s criteria for both the 2015 and 2016 rankings.

New Zealand remained in the number-two position, followed by Denmark (3), South Korea (4), Hong Kong (5), Britain (6) and the United States (7). Sweden moved up a notch to number eight, switching places with Norway. Finland kept its 10th place.

The World Bank’s annual “Doing Business” report, now in its 13th year, looks at the regulatory environment for small and medium-sized companies to see how it hampers or helps them conduct business, from starting up and paying taxes to registering property and trading across borders.

“A modern economy cannot function without regulation and, at the same time, it can be brought to a standstill through poor and cumbersome regulation,” said Kaushik Basu, World Bank chief economist.

“The challenge of development is to tread this narrow path by identifying regulations that are good and necessary, and shunning ones that thwart creativity and hamper the functioning of small and medium enterprises.”

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