Tanzania shines in 2017 ‘doing business’ report

FLORENCE MUGARULA

TANZANIA has performed impressively in doing business report, scoring 54.48 points in distance to frontier (DTF) and rising seven places in the global ranking.

According to the World Bank’s 2017 Ease of Doing Business report, Tanzania, which has moved from the 139th position in 2016 to 132nd in 2017, is among the countries that have performed well in the Sub- Saharan Africa.

Reacting to the report, Private Sector Development Programme Coordinator in the Prime Minister’s Office Barney Laseko, said the government is keen to reform the business environment in the country, with the views of registering better performance in future.

He said the government is determined to make changes on four critical areas - business licensing, land reforms, easy registration of businesses and people’s registration -noting that the four areas have been identified as key factors to improve business environment in the country.

He said the government has been working closely with the private sector towards improving business environment and speeding up economic development. According to Mr Laseko, the government is more concerned with business environment reforms in support of the ambitious industrial driven economy.

Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF)’s Executive Director Godfrey Simbeye, commenting on the report, commended Tanzania as a country, for the impressive performance compared to the previous years.

“We can see light in the future, the government is doing everything in its powers to get things moving forward ... it’s our hope that Tanzania will record better performance in the 2018 business environment reforms report,” he said, asking the government to quickly execute the reforms to appease investors and improve the country’s economy.

“Commitment is all that is needed in implementing the reforms, some countries register the best performance because their governments are serious in implementing these reforms ... we remain confident that the fifth government will implement these reforms at the required speed,” he noted.

The report shows that Tanzania is doing well on trading across borders. Assistant Director in the Prime Minister’s Office, responsible for improving business environment, Christopher Mramba, said despite the great improvements recorded, the government will sustain improvements in various areas.

“We will continue improving all areas that affect investments, the aim is to create good environment for doing business and attract both, domestic and international investors,” he said. Dar es Salaam-based World Bank economist Yutaka Yoshino, praised Tanzania for the reforms it has been doing to improve the environment of doing business.

He said the government has improved infrastructure, citing reforms on the ports operations. Although Tanzania has shown great commitment towards improving the environment of doing business, Mr Yoshino said the journey is still long and the World Bank appreciates the government efforts and will continue supporting the efforts.

According to the report, Sub-Saharan Africa economies, Tanzania’s inclusive, have implemented a record number of reforms in the past year to improve the business climate for local entrepreneurs. Ms Rita Ramalho, the Manager of Doing Business Project, said although the region still has work to do to make itself more business friendly, there are steady improvements in many African economies. She said: “Seeing a record number of reforms taking place in Africa is very encouraging for local entrepreneurs and the global business community.

” The report says at least 37 countries out of 48 in the region adopted 80 reforms in the past year, an increase of 14 per cent from the previous year. The report shows that Mauritius has retained its top position in the region, with an overall doing business global ranking of 49.

It performed best in areas of protecting minority investors and dealing with construction permits, with the rank of 32 and 33, respectively.

The ranks of some economies in the region are Rwanda (56), Botswana (71) and South Africa (74). This year’s report has also covered Somalia for the first time, with 190 the total number of global economies covered. Neighbouring Kenya has been placed among the top 10 improvers, ranked 92. It implemented reforms in five areas of doing business.