Uganda improves business reforms

Friday, 19th August, 2011

Uganda is ranked second in East Africa in terms of improving its business regulatory environment in the last five years.

Uganda has also improved 7 places from 129 to 122 as a business hub in the region.

A new World Bank survey shows that in the last five years, Rwanda improved its business environment the most followed by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya is the worst performer.

Most business regulatory reforms in East Africa over the 5 years focused on simplifying procedures for starting a business, registering property and dealing with customs, according to Kenyan based newspaper, Nairobi Star.

For the second year in a row, Rwanda was also featured in the 10 most improved the most on ease of doing business, moving up from 70 to 58.

Kenya, which has often been described as the business hub of the region, dropped 4 places in the rankings from 94 to 98. Tanzania dropped from 125 to 128 while Uganda improved 7 places from 129 to 122.

"As a result of the reforms in business registration, the average time to start a business in East Africa fell from 37 days in 2005 to 24 days in 2010," reads the Doing Business in the East African Community 2011 report by IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank.

In 2003 Rwanda started to reach out to East Asian economies such as Singapore to learn from their reform success stories.

Since 2005, it has implemented 22 business regulation reforms in the areas measured by Doing Business, using the report to track progress on an annual basis.

But for investors in the construction industry, Kenya is the place to be as it has some of the most business-friendly regulations for dealing with construction permits.

The New Vision