Mauritius has been ranked 25th out of 190 countries by the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018. From the last edition of the report, Mauritius’ score increased from 75.45 to 77.54, a progress of 2.09 points, which indicates improvements in the country’s doing business environment. Mauritius’ ranking saw a significant leap of 24 places with respect to last year’s, while the country reconfirms its leading position in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

Mauritius improved its scores in 8 of the 10 indicators used by the report, namely Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Getting Electricity, Registering Property, Paying taxes, Trading Across Borders, Enforcing contracts and Resolving Insolvency. Mauritius is among the league of top 10 countries in the Dealing with Construction Permits and Paying taxes indicator.

The World Bank underlined that Mauritius carried out four reforms including outsourcing the design and construction of sewerage connection works, speeding up the process of obtaining a construction permit and improving processes to facilitate cross border trade. Mauritius also made it easier to transfer property by reducing the transfer tax, implementing a complaint mechanism and publishing service standards.

Legislative amendments through the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2017 and a series of administrative reforms undertaken by Ministries and Public Sector Agencies to improve their procedures contributed to the positive result.

The Doing Business Report 2018 can be accessed here