Dubai: Most Gulf states except Saudi Arabia and Oman slipped in their rankings in the annual Doing Business 2011 report released by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation Thursday.
Saudi Arabia improved its ranking to 11, inching ahead of last year’s 12th rank.
Raju Menon, Managing Partner at investment advisory Morison Menon, said, “Saudi Arabia has initiated some reforms in business registration, such as fast-tracking application which the UAE could adopt to catch up.
Besides, the UAE could reduce business processes to set up a company and increase foreign shareholding ceiling.”
The report also pushed back UAE’s position to 40 from 37 last year, and it downgraded Bahrain from 25 to 28 this year. Oman is the only GCC country to retain its position at 57, and Kuwait was pushed to 74 from 69.
However, Qatar emerged the biggest loser among the GCC states, downgraded to 50 from 39 last year. Analysts feel the impact of the global financial crisis affected UAE and Qatar’s rankings.
“The UAE and Qatar were victims of [the] global financial crisis, hence both were more focused on recovery. Saudi Arabia took advantage of the above and investors moved to [a] safer place like Saudi Arabia, which has sustainable growth plans,” investment advisor Jitendra Gianchandani, Chairman & Managing Partner of Jitendra Consulting Group, told Gulf News.
Menon said bureaucratic delays are hampering business processes in the country.
“Bureaucracy is getting into business licensing and causing delays — almost at every step. The UAE needs to eliminate this.”
Leaders
For the fifth year running, Singapore leads in the ease of doing business, followed by Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Among the top 25 economies, 18 made things even easier over the past year.
The report, Doing Business 2011: Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs — the eighth in a series of annual reports, ranks 183 economies on key aspects of business regulation for domestic firms.
China and India are among the top 40 most-improved.
In the past year, governments in 117 economies made 216 regulatory reforms aimed at making it easier to start and operate a business.
“Governments worldwide have been consistently taking steps to empower local entrepreneurs,” said Neil Gregory, Acting Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group.
In the past five years, about 85 per cent of the world’s economies have made it easier for local entrepreneurs to operate, through 1,511 improvements to business regulation.
