Mauritius ranks 19th in Overall Ease of Doing Business 2013

Mauritius ranks 19th in global rankings on Overall Ease of Doing Business 2013 and tops Africa's Sub-Saharan economies, according to the World Bank group's Doing Business 2013 Report: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-size Enterprises launched on October 24.

Mauritius has climbed five positions from its previous ranking of 24th in the Doing Business 2012 report and now features among the top twenty economies on the overall ease of doing business out of the 185 economies rated by the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank. This is attributed mostly to the continuous reforms upon which the country has embarked thus transforming and improving the business climate into a more globally competitive one. Reforms have also made the investment procedures significantly easier for people to do business, the report points out.

Mauritius has also improved access to credit information by starting to collect payment information from retailers and distributing both positive and negative information. In addition, the country made property transfers faster following the  implementation of an electronic information management system at the Registrar-General’s Department.

Doing Business 2013 focuses on regulations applying to small and medium-size domestic companies in 11 areas of their life cycles mainly: starting a business, dealing with construction permit, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers.

According to the World Bank report, Sub-Saharan Africa is reforming at a fast pace. Since 2005, out of the 50 most improved economies in business regulation for domestic firms, 17 are in the Sub-Saharan Africa. From June 2011 to June 2012, 28 out of 46 governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have implemented at least one regulatory reform making it easier to do business.

Among the African economies that have improved since 2005 are: Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Angola, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé and Principe.

Doing Business 2013 is the 10th in an annual series of reports issued by the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank and ranking 185 economies on the overall ease of doing business. The report outlines that much more can be done to enable African economies to build a strong and competitive private sector. The region’s average ranking on the ease of doing business is 140 out of 185 and Mauritius and South Africa are the only African economies among the top 40 in the global ranking.

Africa Centre of Excellence for Business

In the same line, to encourage investors to do business in Mauritius, the Board of Investment (BOI) launched on October 24 the Africa Centre of Excellence for Business, which is  a one-stop shop to explore investment opportunities in the African continent. The Centre which is located on the premises of the BOI, aims to position Mauritius as the business and investment platform for doing business in Africa.

The services to be provided are: real-time business insights on latest developments in Africa through continuous updates, a seamless platform for facilitating investment in Africa and potential partners and service providers in Mauritius. The Centre is also expected to become an essential contact point for investors seeking to use Mauritius as a platform for investing in Africa while bringing together market intelligence, investment partners, opportunities for networking and a business repository to the local and foreign investment community.