Jordan’s rank on ‘doing business’ index improves slightly

AMMAN—Jordan ranked 118th out of 190 countries in the Doing Business Report 2017, climbing one place since last year.

The report, released by the World Bank, cited improvements in Jordan's business environment, highlighting that the Kingdom had allowed or improved more deductible expenses and depreciation and introduced or improved electronic submission and processing of documents for exports.

Jordan also strengthened transport or port infrastructure for exports, the report said, noting that improvements to infrastructure in the Kingdom had decreased border compliance time for exports by 2.1 hours.

Transport or port infrastructure for imports underwent the same improvements, while authorities made paying taxes less costly by increasing the depreciation rates for some fixed assets.

Meanwhile, Jordan made exporting and importing easier by streamlining customs clearance processes, advancing the use of a single service window and improving infrastructure at the Aqaba port, the report indicated.

The Doing Business Report measures the ease of doing business in an economy, in areas such as starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

In terms of starting a business, Jordan ranked 106th, while it came 79th for paying taxes.  

For getting credit, Jordan ranked 185th globally, and for trading across borders it came in 50th place.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) placed 26th overall, and is the highest-ranked economy in the Middle East and North Africa, followed by Bahrain in 63rd place and Oman in 66th place.

Amid political instability, Libya took 188th place, Syria 173rd and Yemen 179th place.

The pace of business reforms in the Middle East and North Africa accelerated considerably in the past year, despite conflict and turmoil in the region, the report noted. 

The World Bank found that 15 of the region’s 20 economies implemented a total of 35 reforms to facilitate the ease of doing business. This is a significant increase from the annual average of 19 reforms during the past five years.

Globally, New Zealand came first for ease of doing business, followed by Singapore and Denmark.