The World Bank ranks Mauritius 1st in Africa and 20th worldwide in its ‘Doing Business Report 2019’, which was released on 31st October 2018. The report assessed a total of 190 countries in the world, of which the top three countries are New Zealand, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong.

With a score of 79.58, Mauritius once again improved its ranking by climbing five ranks compared to the previous year, showing that the island economy is constantly enhancing its business regulatory environment and narrowing the gap between itself and the world’s best economies.

Mauritius is the only African country in the top 20. The country comes first in Africa, where it is followed by Rwanda (29th worldwide), Morocco (60), Kenya (61) and Tunisia (80) among the top five African countries. At the global level, Mauritius is one of the top 3 of 51 upper middle-income economies, ahead of Canada (22), Germany (24), France (32), Japan (39) and China (46).

The World Bank notes that Mauritius has made improvements in 8 out of 10 indicators, namely in Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Getting Electricity, Registering Property, Protecting Minority Investors, Paying Taxes, Trading Across Borders and Enforcing Contracts.

Mauritius has made notable improvements, namely:

• Making Starting a Business easier by simplifying procedures and reducing costs, for example, by linking the database of business registry with the database of the social security office.
• In the Paying Taxes category, Mauritius ranks 6th out of 190 countries, as a result of the introduction of a fast track system for the processing of VAT repayment claims within 15 days and simpler procedures for the submission of VAT and corporate returns.
• Mauritius climbed from the 33rd to the 15th position in terms of Protecting Minority Investors, based on the fact that the provisions of good corporate governance have been made mandatory on public companies.
• Regarding Trading Across Borders, Mauritius made exporting easier by introducing a risk-based management system. The time for border compliance at export has been reduced from 38hrs to 24hrs.
• In terms of Getting Electricity, it is noted that a simplification of the number of procedures required to apply for connectivity to the electricity network.

Commenting on the progress of Mauritius over the years, the World Bank observed that the island economy has reformed its business environment methodically over time. It observes that «Mauritius has reformed more than once in almost all areas measured» over the past ten years. These reforms resulted into noteworthy improvements in the country’s doing business climate, such as a decrease by more than 12 times in the time taken to register a business and a reduction by more than 10 times in the time required for incorporating a business.

The Doing Business Report 2019 highlights that this year saw a peak in doing business reform activities worldwide, where 128 economies undertook a record 314 reforms during the period 2017-2018. Sub-Saharan Africa has been the region with the highest number of reforms each year since 2012. A record 107 reforms (one third of the total) were recorded across 40 countries in Africa this year, with the effects certainly felt among the private sector.

The complete Doing Business Report 2019 can be accessed here and for the Economic Profile of Mauritius please click here