Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-The World Bank has commended the government’s current efforts to improve the Doing Business environment in the country as the Robert Mugabe leadership seeks to rescue the crippled economy.
In the latest rankings for the Doing Business the World Bank placed Zimbabwe on position 161 out of 190 ranked nations with an improved 47.10 points.
Amongst the reasons for the country’s improved ranking is that “Zimbabwe streamlined the approval process for construction permits by improving interagency coordination between the Harare City Council and architectural agencies”, according to the WB.
The WB cited the inclusion of the Office of the President in the restructuring exercise as another plus.
“In Zimbabwe, the Office of the President and Cabinet oversees the Doing Business reform initiative using a Rapid Results Initiative approach”.
“The Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet is the strategic sponsor of the Initiative”.
“Permanent Secretaries from more than 10 ministries are responsible for implementing measures outlined in the action plan for each of the Doing Business indicators”.
The government has been fighting to correct the country’s image and standing so as to draw Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) after a dearth of such has left the economy in tatters with industry operating at below minimum levels.
This has in turn given birth to a spike in the number of illegal vending and unregistered operations which have not benefited state fiscus.
Recent statistics released by ZIMSTATS showed that the tax revenue targets were missed by 4% for this past quarter.
New Zealand leads the rankings followed by Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong and South Korea to round off the top five.
At number 49 Mauritius is the highest ranked African state followed by Rwanda at 56, Morocco at 68, Botswana at 71 and South Africa at 74.
Africa’s second largest economy Nigeria lags far behind at 169.
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