Doing Business Report on Small Island States Identifies Opportunities to Strengthen Competitiveness

Doing Business Report on Small Island States Identifies Opportunities to Strengthen Competitiveness

Port Louis, Mauritius, November 12, 2008—A new report from IFC and the World Bank finds that some of the world’s small island states are creating more opportunity for local businesses through regulatory reforms that help boost competitiveness and set standards worldwide for good practice.

Doing Business in Small Island Developing States 2009, the second in a series, examines the performance of 33 small island states based on the Doing Business indicators and compares the regulatory environment for business in these economies. The report finds that Singapore is the easiest place in the world to do business, while Mauritius, St. Lucia, and Fiji are leading the way in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, respectively. The Dominican Republic is this year’s top small-island reformer as well as a top-10 reformer globally.

Svetlana Bagaudinova, author of the report, said, “Better business regulations give firms more opportunities to grow and create jobs, which is critical for small island states that have to overcome challenges posed by size and distance. Being small can even be an advantage because reform can happen faster and deliver results sooner.”

Small states with lagging regulatory environments can learn from each other. Mauritius, which ranks 24^th on the ease of doing business globally, is an example of how a sustained, high-level commitment to reform can transform the business environment and deliver results. Over the past two years, Mauritius has enjoyed a steady increase in the annual growth rate, from 2.2 percent in 2005 to 5.4 percent in 2007. Also, unemployment has dropped from 9.6 percent in 2005 to 8.5 percent in 2007.

Thordur Gudjonsson, Director of Iceland’s Department of International Development, said, “Small island economies need global integration, regional cooperation, and to share good practices in regulatory reform to better compete in the world economy. This report is a navigation card on business regulatory reforms tailored to their specific needs and challenges.”

The report was launched on November 12 in Mauritius. The event was jointly hosted by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Empowerment and the Board of Investment of Mauritius, and sponsored by the Iceland government, IFC, USAID, and the World Bank.

For more about the report, visit www.doingbusiness.org/features/smallislands2009.aspx.

About the Doing Business Project

The Doing Business project ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet governments requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates. For more information, visit www.doingbusiness.org.