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Thursday, 25 May 2017 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
At the first Cabinet meeting after the reshuffle, investment took a prime position with a fresh decision to establish a new secretariat to foster inter-agency coordination and propel Sri Lanka towards being amongst the top 70 countries on the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index by 2020.
The Cabinet paper, presented by Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama, proposed to establish a dedicated team within the ministry to act as a secretariat, taking responsibility and leading coordination of the overall reform efforts on a daily basis and escalating challenges they cannot overcome to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management or Cabinet.
Ten technical taskforces have been indentified based on the subcomponents covered in the World Bank Group’s Ease of Doing Business Index that will include public agencies and professional experts from the private sector. The sectors include starting a business, protecting minority investors, getting credit, registering property, paying taxes and enforcing contracts.
The Ministry, in collaboration with the relevant taskforces and the World Bank Group, is proposing reform action plans covering eight subcomponents of the Doing Business Index. These reform actions were a combination of legal reforms and procedural changes that need to be implemented to improve the business climate of Sri Lanka, the Cabinet paper noted.
The regulatory reforms are complex, time consuming and require varied stakeholder consultations for implementation. A list of the legal reforms have also been approved by Cabinet to be presented to the compilers of the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report by end May so that it may be considered for the 2018 edition.
“The Government has set the objective to move up the Doing Business ranking to be within the top 70 economies by 2020. This objective, while ambitious, seems achievable provided that strong concerted and well sequenced actions are taken to bring investment climate reforms to completion,” the Cabinet paper added.
In the 2017 edition of the Ease of Doing Business rankings, Sri Lanka slipped one spot to 110, despite some key reforms. The World Bank said this is not necessarily an indicator that the country has slipped down in rank, but more a reflection that other peer economies have undertaken a larger number of reforms in the business environment during the same period.
A total of 11 reforms, making it easier to do business, were implemented by five of eight economies in South Asia in 2016, significantly higher than the region’s annual average of nine reforms over the past five years.
Pakistan is among the top 10 global improvers. Over the past 12 months, it implemented a total of three reforms and saw its ranking progress from 148 to 144.
India also implemented reforms across multiple areas. In the past five years, Sri Lanka has implemented the highest number of Doing Business reforms in the region, with 12 reforms in total, followed by India with 10.
