Overview
The g7+ group is a country-owned and country-led global mechanism established in April 2010 to monitor, report and draw attention to the unique challenges faced by fragile states. The Doing Business in the g7+ 2013 is a special report on the business regulations of the economies in this group: Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Sudan (1), Timor-Leste and Togo. Doing Business does not collect data for Somalia, who is also a member of the g7+ group. The Doing Business in the g7+ 2013 draws on the global Doing Business project and its database as well as the findings of Doing Business 2013. The report presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights, and identifies good practices in the economies of the g7+ group.
Main Findings
The regulatory environment in the g7+ is improving . . .
- All g7+ economies have improved their business regulatory environment since 2005, narrowing the gap with the best performance observed globally by Doing Business. Sierra Leone, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and the Solomon Islands are among the 50 economies globally that have made the biggest improvements relative to their earlier performance.
- In the past 8 years all 16 g7+ economies covered by Doing Business implemented reforms making it easier to do business in at least 2 areas of business regulation, and 12 did so in at least 4 areas.
- The biggest reform efforts in the g7+ were aimed at making it easier to start a business, get credit, register property and pay taxes. Particularly remarkable are the improvements in starting a business: through 28 regulatory reforms, g7+ economies have cut the average time to start a business by more than half since 2005, and the cost (as a percentage of income per capita) by two-thirds.
. . . and good regulatory practices can be found among g7+ economies . . .
- A hypothetical economy combining the best regulatory practices observed in 2012 among the g7+ economies—the “best of the g7+”—would stand at 10 in the global ranking on the ease of doing business.
. . . but business regulations in the g7+ still lag behind international best practices
- The business regulatory environment is significantly more difficult on average in g7+ economies than in International Development Association (IDA) member economies or even in other fragile and conflict-affected states. Among the 185 economies covered by Doing Business, g7+ economies have an average ranking of 160 on the ease of doing business.
- On average, g7+ economies perform relatively better on indicators measuring the efficiency of regulatory processes, such as the starting a business, getting electricity and paying taxes indicators. Their performance is weakest on those measuring the strength of legal institutions relevant to business regulation, such as the enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency indicators.
1. Data for South Sudan are only available in the country tables and detailed topic data section at the end of the report. Data for South Sudan (Juba) were collected as part of a subnational research project in 2011 (See Doing Business in Juba 2011).