WB: PNG not easy place to do business

By KEVIN PAMBA
PAPUA New Guinea is not an easy place to do business, according to the World Bank’s “ease of doing business” index of economies for 2012.
Out of 183 economies measured, PNG ranks 101, a drop of four places from last year’s ranking of 97.
PNG ranks lower than fellow Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) members, Solomon Islands (74), Vanuatu (76) and Fiji (79).
Of the two metropolitan economies of the Pacific, New Zealand (three) is a much easier place to do business than Australia (15).
The city-state, Singapore, is the easiest economy to do business in the world with a ranking of “one” followed by Hong Kong (two), New Zealand (three) and United States (four).
 Other economies in the top 10 ranking are Denmark (five), Norway (six), United Kingdom (seven), South Korea (eight), Iceland (nine) and Ireland (10).
 Surprisingly Japan (20) ranks behind many OECD countries.
The world’s largest and fastest-growing economy, China ranks comparatively low at 91 but better than stable-mate, India (132).
Many of the African countries rank as the most-difficult places with Congo Democratic Republic, Guinea, Eritrea, Congo Republic, Central African Republic and Chad making the bottom five.
“A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm,” the World Bank stated on its website.
“This index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 10 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic.”
“The rest of the tables summarise the key indicators for each topic and benchmark against regional (East Asia and Pacific) and high-income economy (OECD) averages.”
The 10 topics that PNG and the other 182 economies were measured and the scores it (PNG) received in terms of degree of difficulty are: starting a business (84); dealing with construction permits (138); getting electricity (20); registering property (87); Getting credit (98); protecting investors (46); paying taxes (106); trading across borders (99); enforcing contracts (163) and resolving insolvency (116).
PNG is classified as a “lower middle income” country with the gross national income per capita at US$1,300. The PNG ranking can be seen on the URL link: http://doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/papua-new-guinea/