The World Bank (WB) draft Business Ready Index (B-Ready Index) report said doing business environment in Bangladesh has significantly improved over the past several years.
As per the draft report, out of 50 countries Bangladesh stands at 29 place now behind Nepal and Indonesia but above Pakistan, which is at 37th place in the chart.
The first draft of B-Ready-2024 report presented at an informal meeting of the lender's top executives in July is set to replace the global lender's flagship Ease of Doing Business report that has ceased to be published since 2021.
Estonia and Singapore are top two scorers, each achieving above 70 in all three pillars or criteria. Bangladesh is among top scorers in operational efficiency scores (70) moderately in the regulatory framework between 50 and 70, and ranks low in public services below 50.
Vietnam, one of Bangladesh's key competitors in global apparel market, has scored higher due to the country's better public services where Bangladesh secured 56.99 points in regulatory framework, 41.46 points in public services, and 70.49 points in operational efficiency.
Sharifa Khan, WB alternative executive director said it in a letter to Economic Relations Division Secretary Shahriar Kader Siddiky recently.
The new report, set to appear this year on pilot basis in an initial three-year phase, aims to provide an independent evaluation of business climate and offer policymakers insights into areas for intervention to support private sector-led growth.
The first report in the series, B-Ready-1, evaluates 50 countries, including Bangladesh. The second report will appear in 2025 and the third in the following year, analysing the business friendliness of 112 and 185 economies, respectively.
The report assesses an economy's business environment based on three pillars - regulatory framework, public services, and operational efficiency, on the basis of 10 topics - business entry, business location, utility services, labour, financial services, international trade, taxation, dispute resolution, market competition and business insolvency.
Bangladesh in the last Doing Business report in 2020, ranked 168th out of 190 economies. This marked an improvement from the previous year's 176th position, which the WB attributes to three reforms - reducing business registration fees, improving electricity connection system, and expanding the coverage of the central bank's credit information bureau.
Bangladesh lagged considerably behind other South Asian economies in implementing reforms since the inception of the Doing Business study in 2003/04, the 2020 report noted.
It placed Bangladesh next to last globally on the enforcing contracts indicator and 184th out of 190 on the registering property indicator.
"Transferring a property title in Bangladesh takes, an average, 271 days, almost six times longer than the global average of 47 days.
Resolving a commercial dispute through a local first-instance court takes, an average, 1,442 days, almost three times more than the 590-day average among OECD high-income economies,"
To connect a new building to an electrical grid, a business needs to complete nine procedures, the most of which are not only in the region but also globally. Only two other economies in the world require nine steps to obtain a connection, the WB's last Doing Business report found.
