Guyana has slipped one place in the World Bank Doing Business report for 2012 – earning a score of 114 compared to 113 in 2011 – as accessing electricity became more expensive and the process for registering a property became more cumbersome.
According to the World Bank, the report presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights for 183 economies. It said that the data is current as of June 2011.
For starting a business, Guyana ranked 87; for registering property, the rank was 104; trading across borders, 82; getting credit, 166; getting electricity, 144; dealing with construction permits, 28; enforcing contracts, 73, paying taxes, 115; and protecting investors, 79.
In terms of starting a business, the report said that Guyana made this easier by reducing the time needed for registering a new company and for obtaining a tax identification number.
But in terms of getting electricity, the report said that Guyana made getting electricity more expensive by tripling the security deposit required for a new connection.
As regards registering property, the report found that in Guyana, transferring property became slower because of a lack of personnel at the Deeds Registry.
“A fundamental premise of Doing Business is that economic activity requires good rules —rules that establish and clarify property rights and reduce the cost of resolving disputes; rules that increase the predictability of economic interactions and provide contractual partners with certainty and protection against abuse,” said the preface of the report.
“The objective is regulations designed to be efficient, accessible to all and simple in their implementation,” the preface said, adding that in some areas Doing Business gives higher scores for regulation providing stronger protection of investor rights.
“This year’s report ranks economies on the basis of 10 areas of regulation—for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency (formerly closing a business).
But the report said that its research is limited in scope.
“It does not attempt to measure all costs and benefits of a particular law or regulation to society as a whole.
Nor does it measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors or affect the competitiveness of an economy,” the report said.
It noted that its aim is simply to supply business leaders and policy makers with a fact base for informing policy making “and to provide open data for research on how business regulations and institutions affect such economic outcomes as productivity, investment, informality, corruption, unemployment and poverty.”
