The World Bank has acknowledged improvement in the ease of doing business in Nigeria and 34 other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. It noted that virtually all nations in the continent took calculated steps to implement reforms which made doing business more convenient for private sector operators.
The global financial institution indicated this in its report of this year’s study on Doing Business which was released yesterday. It revealed that Nigeria alone undertook 10 regulatory reforms in its push towards making private sector operators take charge of the economy.
With most of the reforms focusing on improving business incorporation, trade, and credit reporting systems, the reforms led Nigeria to gradually narrow the gap with the best regulatory practices in the region.
According to “The report, Sub-Saharan Africa has had a great year of reform, with 35 of 47 economies recording at least one reform that makes it easier to do business – 75 reforms in total.”
The Doing Business report identified that Nigeria ranks among the top five economies in Sub-Saharan Africa in two areas – the ease of getting credit and the strength of minority investor protections.
Nigeria saw an increase of 3.6 points in its distance to frontier score, greater than the global average increase of 0.8 between 2013 and 2014.
The World Bank report disclosed that this “is due in large part to an increase in the coverage rate of Nigeria’s credit reporting system and a reduction in the company registration fee that made it less costly to start a business.”
Nigeria is among the eleven economies with a population of over 100 million. The report in covering two cities; provided new insights into the variability of business regulation within economies. Lagos and Kano were covered in the report.
According to the World Bank, “This year, for the first time, the DB team analyzed business regulations in Kano as well as Lagos making Nigeria one of few countries where the report covers two cities.”
It continued that “Francophone Africa had an excellent year, with Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and Togo counted among the top ten reformers globally. Senegal is the global top reformer, with 6 reforms, closely followed by Cote d’Ivoire and the DRC with 5 reforms each.”
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