Adviser to Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan on Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, has given the credit of Pakistan’s improved rating in World Bank’s (WB) Ease of Doing Business Index to the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government and its good policies.
Pakistan has jumped up 28 places on the index and secured a place among the top 10 countries with the most improved business climate — a development that will greatly improve its image abroad.
Pakistan carried out six reforms that helped improving its ranking from 136 to 108, according to the WB’s annual flagship report, ‘Ease of Doing Business 2020’, released last month. It turned out to be the sixth global reformer and first in South Asia that brought ease in doing business in the past one year.
Praising the PML-N in what is being termed as challenging his own premier’s policy statement, Dawood has said that it was the previous government’s good policies that helped the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) carry out the said reforms.
“Ease of doing busniess started improving under the previous government and their efforts helped us make even better. It’s not just us… look how the power crisis has been overcome. All of it wasn’t done within a single year,” he can be heard as saying in a video doing rounds over the internet.
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According to The Express Tribune, the WB monitors a country’s business related regulations on 10 benchmarks that are as broad as from starting a business, to getting electricity connection, securing construction permits, paying taxes, dispute resolution, business insolvency and protecting minority shareholders’ rights. All these areas are closely looked at by the global investors before they take decisions on making investment.
The report measures how close each economy is to the best global practices in business regulations.
On the measure of absolute progress towards best practices, Pakistan has improved the score to 61 from 55, suggesting the country did some remarkable work this time around and built on the reforms introduced in the previous year as well.
International investors consult the report and the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum before taking decisions on investment plans.
While India remained top among South Asian nations, up 14 spots to 63, Pakistan also made a mark by climbing 28 positions and securing a place among the top 10 global business climate reformers and improving 28 positions in a year.
“This rise is significant and made possible by collective and coordinated actions of the federal government and provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab over the past year,” said the WB Country Director for Pakistan Illango Patchamuthu.
