Guyana has moved 16 places up the World Bank’s latest ranking on ease of doing business.
Of 190 countries ranked in the World Bank’s latest “Doing Business” report, Guyana is ranked 124, moving up from its placement at 140 last year.
New Zealand topped the rankings, followed by Singapore.
Jamaica is the highest ranked Caribbean country in the index at 67, followed by St. Lucia at 86, Trinidad and Tobago at 96, Dominica at 101, the Dominican Republic at 103, Antigua and Barbuda at 117, and The Bahamas at 121. St Vincent was ranked just under Guyana at 125.
According to the report, economies are ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1 to 190. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm.
“The rankings are determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier scores on 10 topics, each consisting of several indicators, giving equal weight to each topic,” the report said, while adding that the rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June, 2016.
The World Bank stated that the ease of doing business ranking compares economies with one another; the distance to frontier score benchmarks economies with respect to regulatory best practice, showing the absolute distance to the best performance on each Doing Business indicator.
When compared across years, the distance to frontier score shows how much the regulatory environment for local entrepreneurs in an economy has changed over time in absolute terms, while the ease of doing business ranking can show only how much the regulatory environment has changed relative to that in other economies, it added.
