Bangladesh drops one notch to 177th in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking

Bangladesh, with a score of 40.99, lags behind most other SAARC countries in the index, which analyses how effective government regulations are at promoting business. However, it did manage to improve upon last year’s distance to frontier score, rising 0.15 points to 40.99.

Among the SAARC countries only Afghanistan, at 183, performs worse. Bhutan ranks the highest among South Asian nations at 75.

India has made one of the most significant improvements in this year’s rankings, jumping nearly 30 spots to 100th.

Nepal ranked 105, Sri Lanka 111, the Maldives 136 and Pakistan 147.

The ease of doing business study ranks the business environment of a country based on 10 indicator sets: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

“Bangladesh made starting a business more expensive by increasing the cost of business registration at the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms. This reform applies to both Chittagong and Dhaka,” the report said.

Bangladesh is among the worst on the indicators of getting electricity, registering property and enforcing contracts. Its best indicator was protecting minority investors.

While its ‘distance to frontier’ score for starting a business fell from 81.74 to 80.67, Bangladesh improved in dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes and resolving insolvency. The other indicators remained unchanged.

The ease of doing business ranking was once again topped by New Zealand, with Somalia slumping to 190, the lowest position.