Nepal Improves in Ease of Doing Business Index 2018: World Bank

Nepal has moved two points up in the global ease of doing business index, said the World Bank (WB) in its recent release.

The World Bank’s Doing Business (DB) 2018 report highlighted rise in Nepal’s doing business index to 105^th position, globally, from the earlier 107^th position in the Doing Business 2017 index.

Region-wise, Nepal (105) stands third after Bhutan (75) and India (100), and is above Sri Lanka (130), Maldives (136), Pakistan (147), Bangladesh (177) and Afghanistan (183).

“A total of 20 reforms making it easier to do business were implemented by six of the eight economies in South Asia in the past year. This is more than double the region’s annual average of less than nine reforms over the past five years,” the World Bank said in a statement.

Getting Credits and Minority Investors Contributed Majorly

WB pointed at getting credit and protecting minority Investors as the two key DB reform factors that contributed to rise in in Nepal’s ease of doing business ranking (Range: 1-190).

Starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency were among DB indicators WB considered to measure improvement in the Nepali economy.

According to WB, the implementation of a functional secured transactions system by way of operationalizing the existing law on secured transactions helped Nepal in boosting access to credits.

With regard to protecting minority investors, WB highlighted Nepal’s move towards greater corporate transparency.

In terms of the DB 2018 Distance to Frontier (DTF) ranking (Range: 0-100), South Asia stands at 53.64 and Nepal at 59.95.