The World Bank (WB) Friday said that Pakistan has improved in six areas measured by 'doing business' - starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes and trading across borders - reflecting the country's development of an ambitious reform strategy including the establishment of national secretariat and Prime Minister's reform steering committee.
The WB stated that list of 20 economies, improving the most on ease of doing business score - Economies are selected based on the number of reforms and on how much their ease of doing business score improved. First Doing Business selects the economies that implemented reforms making it easier to do business in three or more of the 10 areas included in this year's aggregate ease of doing business score.
Regulatory changes making it more difficult to do business are subtracted from the number of those making it easier. Second, Doing Business sorts these economies on the increase in their ease of doing business score due to reforms from the previous year (the impact due to changes in income per capita and the lending rate is excluded).
The list does not reflect the best performing/ranked economies, which will be disclosed at the time of Doing Business 2020 launch on October 24, 2019. The improvement in their score is calculated not by using the data published in 2018 but by using comparable data that capture data revisions and methodology changes when applicable. The choice of the most improved economies is determined by the largest improvements in the ease of doing business score among those with at least three reforms.
According to WB Pakistan made starting a business easier by expanding procedures available through the online one-stop shop. In addition to improvements in property registration, obtaining a construction permit became easier after the Sindh Building and Control Authority and the Lahore Development Authority streamlined approval workflows and improved the operational efficiency of their one-stop shops.
The launching of online portals for new commercial connections made getting electricity easier, and tariff changes are announced in advance. Moreover, tax compliance became easier through online payment modules for value added tax and corporate income tax, and a lower corporate income tax rate. Pakistan made trading across borders easier by enhancing the integration of various agencies into an electronic system and by improving coordination of joint physical inspections at the port.
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