Seychelles up two places on World Bank's ‘Doing Business Index’ |30 October 2014

The 2015 Doing Business Report released yesterday by the World Bank puts Seychelles up two places compared to 2014.

However, due to a change in methodology Seychelles is now ranked 85th out of 189 compared to 87th in last year's ranking, based on the revised methodology.

The latest report shows that Seychelles improved in three areas over the past year, namely ‘Paying Taxes’ (43rd), ‘Resolving Insolvencies’ (61st), and ‘Enforcing Contracts’ (103rd). There was no deterioration in any area.

Besides paying taxes and resolving insolvencies, Seychelles ranks satisfactorily in ‘Trading Across Borders’ (42nd), ‘Dealing with Construction Permits’ (48th), and ‘Protecting Minority Investors’ (56th).

In ‘Registering Property’ the country ranks at an average 78th.
However, Seychelles continues to rank poorly in ‘Starting a Business’ (127th), ‘Getting Electricity’ (130th), and ‘Getting Credit’ (171st).  
    
In a statement released by the Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment, which is the principal coordinator of the government's initiative to improve the business environment, Minister Pierre Laporte expressed his disappointment with this year’s ranking, primarily because in his view the latest ranking fails to take into account the important progress that Seychelles has achieved in many areas over the past year.

“Despite the improvement of two places, we are obviously overall disappointed that yet another report by a major international organisation has failed to capture the reality on the ground,” said Minister Laporte.

He added that “we nevertheless believe that we are on the right track with the important reforms that we have implemented and with those that we continue to pursue we will gradually rise up the ranking”.

Minister Laporte further commented that “this past year our staff have worked very hard and closely with the other government agencies and World Bank's focal point at headquarters to get Seychelles' information properly captured and updated, and obviously this ranking has failed to reflect this”.

He gave the example of the Credit Information System managed by the Central Bank of Seychelles and widely acknowledged by various World Bank missions as an important success in strengthening Seychelles' financial sector, and yet this year's report states Seychelles as having no such system.

Following this year's ranking Seychelles is ranked 8th in Africa.  Also worth noting is that despite its average rating at 85th, Seychelles ranks above some major economies like China (90th), Indonesia (114th), and Brazil (120th).