Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – Good Governance Africa (GGA), a research and advocacy body trying to improve governance performance in Africa, said Tuesday its findings show it is getting easier to start business in Africa.
“While it is getting easier to start a business in Africa, only Mauritius, Rwanda and South Africa are in the top 50 of the world’s easiest countries to conduct business,” according to the organisation’s Africa Survey 2014, to be released on October 28, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The Africa Survey is a comprehensive annual collection of social, political and economic indicators for the continent’s 55 countries, compiled from a wide range of sources including the World Bank.
”The five countries in Africa where it is easiest to do business are Mauritius (ranked 20th on the World Bank’s 2014 ease of doing business index), Rwanda (32), South Africa (41) Tunisia (51) and Botswana (56),” said the statement.
GGA also explained that more African countries are making it easier and faster to do business: over two-thirds decreased the number of procedures required to start a business between 2005 and 2013; and over three-quarters reduced the number of days.
Rwanda and Madagascar are said to have the lowest number of procedures required to start a business, at two, while Equatorial Guinea has the highest, at 18.
The statement also revealed that Rwanda had the lowest number of days required to start a business at two days, whereas it takes 135 days to start a business in Equatorial Guinea.
”In comparison, it takes 19 days to open a business in South Africa and five procedures,” the statement added.
“Small to medium-sized enterprises are important drivers of job creation and economic growth,” remarked GGA researcher Georgina Alexander. ”Although the rates of improvement are not uniform across the continent, it is encouraging to see that most African countries are making it easier to start a business.”
