ISLAMABAD: The Board of Investment (BOI) was optimistic that Pakistan’s ranking in Ease of Doing Business would show considerable improvements and come down below 100 when the World Bank releases its next rankings during May this year.
“Currently the BOI has been working on evaluating the performance of ease of doing business in two man cities of the country including Karachi and Lahore, and reports pertaining to it would be presented in cabinet for discussion and finally submitted to the World Bank(WB) for approval,” senior official of BOI told APP here on Monday.
The official said that the government wants to achieve the ambitious target in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking to bring the country from the place of 136 to under than 100 in coming year, which in return would enhance the foreign and local investments and promote economic growth.
As per the previous WB report, Pakistan’s ranking in different indicators for ease of doing business, remained around 100 which is a good sign for promoting investments into the country.
According to the report, the country ranked at 26th in resolving insolvency, at 53 in protecting minority investors among the 190 countries surveyed.
However, the country ranked at 173 in ‘paying taxes’ indicator and was ranked lower in indicators like getting electricity, registering property, enforcing contracts and trading across borders.
The official said Pakistan was focusing to evolve strategy to focus on areas where it can improve. He said the government was evolving short, medium and long term strategy for the implementation of reform actions ranging from six months to a year.
Senior official said the strategy also encompasses development of a communication strategy to build effective feedback mechanisms so that bottlenecks in implementation are identified in a timely manner and dealt accordingly.
It would be two-pronged strategy covering communication within the government departments as well as with the general public and direct beneficiaries of reforms, he said.
The government has evolved the strategy for next three year to reforms for providing more facilities to the businesses in the country.