After years of poor performance, Guyana has finally managed to improve in the areas of registering property, enforcing contracts, starting a business, paying taxes and dealing with construction permits. This was noted by the World Bank’s Doing Business Report of 2018.
The report, which measures the ease of conducting business in individual countries covers the period June 2, 2017 to May 1, 2018.
The document notes that Guyana made it easier to transfer property by decreasing the time of transfers by allocating resources for infrastructure and personnel. Gains were also reported in the area of enforcing contracts as the authorities of the day adopted a new code of civil procedure regulations as well as time standards for key court events.
But despite these gains, the World Bank highlighted that the nation slid eight places globally, from 126 to 134, which indicates a fall in the overall ease of doing business. The World Bank also noted that Guyana dropped considerably in regards to the supply and reliability of getting electricity and the transparency of the tariff index. This, the World Bank indicated, contributed considerably towards the overall decrease of Guyana’s ranking in the Doing Business Report.
Because the Doing Business 2018 report reflects reforms implemented before May 2018, reform actions completed after May 2018 under the Indicators: “Starting a Business and Registering a Property” will be reflected in the World Bank’s 2019 report.
The World Bank noted that there are key ongoing reforms that, once completed, will have a significant impact on the Ease of Doing Business namely: the implementation of the secured transaction Regime, which aims at improving access to credit and the Single Window Bill and the E-Commerce Bill which is required to support other reforms in improving the ease of doing business in Guyana.
