The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to the World Bank's 'Doing Business 2009 Report', Bangladesh's ranking has declined to the 110th position from the previous year's position of 104th despite reforms. Bangladesh was doing well upgrading itself fast in the recent years as 'Doing Business' ranks economies based on 10 indicators that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business and trading across the borders. The report records the reforms that eased the regulatory burden of doing business in four countries in the South Asian region - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka - between June 2007 and June 2008.

The World Bank's report was launched through a video-conference connecting Dhaka, Colombo and Islamabad with Washington D.C. In this region, India ranked 122nd, Nepal 121st, Sri Lanka 102nd while Pakistan in the 77th position performed much better in the latest report, the sixth in the series published by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation. Bangladesh's decline in ranking has been attributed to inclusion of new better performing countries and higher pace of reforms in a number of countries during the period. The number of countries considered in the report this year is 181 compared to 160 last year.

Bangladesh could have performed even better in the report at a time when a lot of reforms were being pursued. Some countries are really serious about improving their ranking, so Bangladesh has to compete with them as well. It is rather encouraging to see that for the first time Bangladesh is showing a substantial improvement in as many as three indicators. The focus should now be on swift implementation of the reforms in the pipeline on both the individual level regulatory areas as well as the overall institutional level to improve the climate for doing business.