ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has improved its position on World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for the second consecutive year, according to the annual report issued by Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
As per World Bank’s latest rankings on ease of doing business for 2020, Pakistan has improved its position by 28 points from 136 to 108 which is an unprecedented improvement, the report said.
Out of six reform areas acknowledged in 2020 report, the highest improvement of 58 points has been made in ‘Starting a Business’ indicator where SECP is leading the reform process.
Pakistan’s ranking in this indicator has improved from 130 to 72 and is placed at 2nd position in South Asian countries in terms of ease of starting a business.
According to SECP, this improvement is primarily due to integration of e-services with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) at the federal level and with business registration portals of Punjab and Sindh.
After this integration, SECP’s e-services offers a one-window facility for company registration with FBR (NTN registration), EOBI, provincial employees social security institutions (PESSI/SESSI), Labour Department, and Excise and Taxation Department of Punjab and Sindh.
As a result of this reform, the number of procedures to start a business as recorded in ‘Doing Business Report 2020’ has been reduced from 10 to 5 and now Pakistan is ranked among the top ten reformers globally.
Pakistan emerging as an increasingly business-friendly nation is massively good news for the local hustle culture and the entrepreneurship environment that has rapidly been garnering interest over the past few years.
