Respected international weekly “The Economist” based in London, with a weekly circulation of 1.5 million copies on the seven continents, gave serious remarks regarding the ranking of countries in the report “Doing Business” (Doing Business) by the World Bank expressing concern about some of its shortcomings.
In fact, most countries high on the list of “Doing Business”, are essentially – poor.
When being in a favorable position on the list, these countries find it easier to apply for foreign investment or some sort of aid, which, if it becomes objective policy of the government, it is not a reliable way of guiding the national economy.
Furthermore, as “The Economist” states, the list does not take into account important elements of the business climate, such as security, corruption, size of the market, financial stability, infrastructure and knowledge.
According to “Doing Business” Macedonia is among the top ranked countries of doing business with ease, improving the ranking of 31st place last year (calculated according to its new methodology) in the last report, released on October 29, 2014.
“Indicators for measuring” on the list are incomplete. The weakness of the report, according to “The Economist” is that it is not based on surveys of businesses. Instead it looks at what is required by a county’s laws and regulations and tries to measure objectively how much time and effort it would take for a typical company to abide by them.
Poor countries tend to have more rules, but many of them can not be bothered to enforce them. And just passing regulations and legislation in accordance with Europe, is usually the main criteria for ranking states in the Worlds Banks’s “Doing Business” report.
“Such findings suggest that wherever strict rules are enforced by a weak state, connected firms find ways to escape the red tape.” reports the “Economist”.
The gap between the ranking of the list of “Doing Business” and the average income is very large, as in Macedonia, or, for example, Rwanda.
Rwanda is ranked ten places from Italy, despite being one of the poorest countries.
