Bangladesh drops to 174th position in 'Ease of doing business' rankings

Bangladesh has dropped two notches—from 172 to 174—in a global index on ease of doing business.

Its ranking is the worst in South Asia.

The World Bank Group runs the ‘Doing Business’ project that ranks 189 countries annually by providing objective measures of business regulations for local firms .

Singapore has topped the rankings for this year. 

In South Asia, India has moved up four notches—from 134 to 130—this year.

But the promise of improvement has already made India the leading foreign investment destination in the last six months. It attracted nearly $30 billion in investments during that time against $28 billion by China.

Pakistan, like Bangladesh, has dropped two notches, from 136 to 138.

Sri Lanka has moved up from 113 to 107 while Maldives ranks at 125, up from 128.

Nepal and Bhutan are the only South Asian countries ranked within the first 100.

But while Nepal dropped five notches over last year from 94 to 99, Bhutan climbed from 71 to 70.

Bangladesh figures worst in the 'getting electricity' category—189th—among the economies rated.

It ranks 86th in the 'paying taxes' category. That is the best rank it gets among the ten categories.

In 'enforcing contracts' category, it also figures right at the bottom of the table at 188.

In the 'registering property' category, it ranks an abysmal 185.

Surprisingly it has dropped five notches in ‘getting credit’ category (from 128 to 133) and six notches in ‘starting a business'’ category ( 111 to 117).

In the "resolving insolvency" category, Bangladesh stagnated at 155 also in ‘dealing with construction permits’ (118) and in ‘trading across borders' category (172).

In 'protecting minority investors' category, it has dropped from 87 to 88.