Nigeria Now 131st In World Bank Ease Of Doing Business Ranking

Nigeria Improves In World Bank Ranking

Nigeria has made a major leap in the latest World Bank ease of doing business report moving up 15 places from its 2019 position.

According to the 2020 report released by the World Bank on Thursday, Nigeria now occupies the 131st position.

The report is based on a comparison of business regulation in 190 countries across the world.

“Nigeria conducted reforms impacting six indicators, including making the enforcement of contracts easier, which placed the 200-million-person economy among the world’s top improvers,” the World Bank statement reads.

“Only two Sub-Saharan African economies rank in the top 50 on the ease of doing business rankings while most of the bottom 20 economies in the global rankings are from the region.

“Compared to other parts of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa still underperforms in several areas. In getting electricity, for example, businesses must pay more than 3,100% per cent of income per capita to connect to the grid, compared to just over 400% in the Middle East and North Africa or 272% per cent in Europe and Central Asia.

“When it comes to trading across borders and paying taxes, businesses spend about 96 hours to comply with documentary requirements to import, versus 3.4 hours in OECD high-income economies, and small and medium-sized businesses in their second year of operation need to pay taxes more than 36 times a year, compared to an average of 23 times globally.”

Meanwhile, the World Bank also named Nigeria as one of top 10 most improved economies in the world, in terms of ease of doing business, for the 2nd time in 3 years.

Naija News reports Togo is the only other African country on the list of top 10 reformers globally.

Others on the list are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China and India.