The World Bank has ranked Nigeria 145th out of 190 countries of the world in its latest report of Doing Business 2018.
In the World Bank’s report released Tuesday, Nigeria scored 52.03 points, which was slightly above the African Regional Average of 50.43 points, moving up 24 places in the rankings.
“The country is among the top ten reformers globally,” the bank reported.
New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore topped the global table with 86.56, 84.57 and 84.06 points, respectively.
On the African continent, Mauritius with 77.56 points was ranked Africa’s best and 25th in the world.
Rwanda and Kenya followed as the other two high performers in the African Region, with 73.40 and 65.15 points respectively.
Others were Botswana, 64.94; South Africa, 64.89; and Zambia with 64.50 points. In the rating, Somalia, Eritrea and South Sudan were behind all other countries as they ranked 190, 189 and 187 respectively.
The bank said that the Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the sub-national and regional level.
Launched in 2002, the report looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle.
“Doing Business captures several important dimensions of the regulatory environment. It provides quantitative indicators on regulation for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation.
“By gathering and analyzing comprehensive quantitative data to compare business regulation environments across economies and over time, Doing Business encourages economies to compete towards more efficient regulation; offers measurable benchmarks for reform; and serves as a resource for academics, journalists, private sector researchers and others interested in the business climate of each economy. In addition, Doing Business offers detailed sub-national reports, which exhaustively cover business regulation and reform in different cities and regions within a nation,” the bank said.
Reacting to the rating Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari, expressed excitement on the cheering news, saying that the rating has put Nigeria’s economic environment on the positive side.
A statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said: “The President congratulates all Nigerians on this very significant step forward which symbolizes the real success achieved by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, the National Assembly and state governments in making it easy for people to register their businesses speedily, obtain licenses and approvals from government agencies without unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks.
“It also reflects our efforts to make it easy for foreign business visitors to obtain visa on arrival, pass through our airports and do their businesses with ease and speed.”
He particularly commended PEDEC (Presidential Ease of Doing Business), chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for a job well done, adding that he looked forward to even greater achievements for the nation.
