... for prudent economic reforms
Accra, Feb. 2, GNA - The International Finance Corporation (IFC) the private sector arm of the World Bank (WB) has commended Ghana for implementing prudent economic reforms leading to the creation of positive business climate in the country.

Ghana's ninth position on the 93IFC-WB 2007 Doing Business" rankings is highly creditable, Mr Lars Thunell, IFC Executive Vice President, stated at a media briefing in Accra.

The top 10 reformers are, Georgia; Romania; Mexico; China; Peru; France; Croatia; Guatemala; Ghana and Tanzania.

Mr Thunell, who is on a three-nation African tour to promote sustainable private sector development, explained that the rankings were based on simplified business regulations; strengthened property rights; eased tax burdens; increased access to credit and reduction in the cost of exporting and importing.

The IFC Vice President as part of the visit had a working tour of AfroTropic, a cocoa processing company in the Ghana Free Zones enclave, and interacted with toddlers at the Star Avenue Early Childhood Development School in Accra.

Mr Thunell, accompanied by Ms Imoni Akpofure IFC Country Director, Mr Thierry Tanoh, IFC's Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, noted that in spite of the favourable conditions, there were still significant impediments in doing business.

He identified obstacles such as complicated and costly business start-up procedures and lengthy import and export procedures.

The IFC Executive Vice President, therefore, called for further reforms to improve the business environment to encourage a strong private sector development.

Statistics from the IFC-WB 2007 Doing Business rankings obtained by the Ghana News Agency indicated that Ghana, the top reformer in Africa, reformed her trade, tax and property administration.

Other reforms were a single window clearance process at customs where traders could now file all paperwork for all agencies at one place; clearance time dropped from seven days to three for imports and from four to two days for exports.

Ghana also reduced the corporate tax rate and reconstruction levy for businesses; cutting the overall tax burden from 35.6 per cent to 32.3 per cent of profits and decreased the stamp duty on property transfers from two per cent to 0.5 per cent of the property value.

On Africa, the report indicates that the Continent made the top three among reforming regions, after Eastern Europe and the OECD countries.

Two-thirds of African countries made at least one reform, whilst Ghana and Tanzania made the list of top 10 reformers on the list of doing business across 175 economies.

Other high-ranked countries in Africa are South Africa, 29; Mauritius, 32; and Namibia, 42. Guinea-Bissau and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ranked 173 and 175, respectively, making them the lowest in the Region.

The top 30 economies are, Singapore; New Zealand; United States; Canada; Hong Kong (China); The United Kingdom; Denmark; Australia; Norway; Ireland; Japan; Iceland; Sweden; Finland; Switzerland; Lithuania; Estonia; Thailand; Puerto Rico; Belgium; Germany; The Netherlands; Korea; Latvia; Malaysia; Israel; St. Lucia; Chile; South Africa and Austria.

The rankings track indicators of the time and cost to meet government requirements in business start-up; operation; trade; taxation and closure. They do not track variables such as macroeconomic policy; quality of infrastructure; currency volatility; investor perceptions or crime rates.