Punjab takes credit for Pakistan’s rise in ease of doing business index

By Jawwad Rizvi
November 16, 2018

LAHORE: The Punjab province has contributed a major as well as a strategic share in improving Pakistan’s overall position in World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business index despite a lower percentage weightage in the total calculation of annual ranking by the international financial institution, provincial officials said on Thursday.

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Pakistan’s country ranking improved by 11 spots in the World Bank's latest Ease of Doing Business rankings, climbing to 136th from 147th last year.

The report provided quantitative indicators on regulation for 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.

Pakistan’s ranking is calculated from two major cities; Lahore with 35 percent and Karachi with 65 percent weightage.

Thus, any efforts made in Punjab to add to the ‘ease of doing business’ will have much lower impact compared to efforts made by Sindh for Karachi.

According to the Doing Business Report 2018, Pakistan slipped by three points and in the previous year it ranked at 147th out of 190 economies with a Distance to Frontier (DTF) of 52.78 on the index. Now, Pakistan stood at 136th rank with an improvement of 11 points, a DTF of 55.31, and an increase of 2.53 points. This improvement was come mainly with efforts of the outgoing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led Punjab government which initiated number of steps after Pakistan was slipped to 147th position in 2017. Then, Punjab government had introduced Ease of Doing Business Reform Agenda for implementation in the province after the ranking was come down at alarming stage.

According to the World Bank data, Pakistan DTF has increased by 2.53 points from 52.78 to 55.31 points, while Lahore DTF improved by 3.17 points, from 54.82 points to 57.99 points. The increase in Lahore DTF is mainly due to tow key provincial indicators, DTF of starting of business increased by 3.28 points from 78.61 points to 81.89 points, and DTF of registering a property by 10.43 points from 55.95 points to 66.38 points as compared to Karachi only 0.88 points, while under the construction permit indicator, building quality control index has improved by only1 point from 11 to 12 points.

The DTF ranking of starting a business is same for both Lahore and Karachi because of involvement of federal government, which devised policies for all provinces and implemented in same way. Thus the ranking of the DTF of starting of business is same for both cities. However, the DTF of registering a property is a completely provincial subject and Lahore has improved by 10.43 points and Karachi only 0.88 points shows the steps taken by the Punjab government through its Ease of Doing Business Reform Agenda.

Ali Jalal, Project Director Program Implementation Unit (PIU), which acts as Secretariat for Ease of Doing Business Reforms in Punjab, said Planning and Development Department has been working tirelessly to improve the Provincial Ease of Doing Business Indicators.

“The government of Punjab has designed Ease of Doing Business Reform Agenda on two pillars, which are continuous implementation of transparent, inclusive and effective policies and good regulatory practices using information and communication technologies (ICT) solutions to facilitate businesses,” Jalal said.

He mentioned that some of the reforms, which were completed and implemented in Punjab under provincial Doing Business Indicators, are starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and property registration and enforcing contracts.

The Punjab government created Business Registration Portal to register partnerships and shops and establishment. Initial registration with Punjab Employees Social Security Institution can also be done through this portal.

Currently, approximately 10,000 have been registered through Punjab Business Registration Portal. This initiative reduced the time required to register a business from 7 to 2 days only and total cost of business registration Rs1100 only.

Further, the reforms introduced for dealing with construction permits have substantially reduced the time to obtain a building permit from 60 to 20 days, creating an investor-friendly environment. Similarly, reforms were introduced in property registration through digitisation of land records, while standardised specimen of sale deed had been introduced and placed at a dedicated website established for registration of deeds.

This has reduced the number of procedures for property registration from 7 to 4 at Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA). Automation of procedures required to register property has reduced time from 56 days to 18 days.

Jalal said the implementation of such an ambitious and challenging reforms agenda would not have been possible without the efforts of all implementing agencies that were involved in it and it required constant monitoring at the top to ensure the completion of key reform initiatives taken to facilitate businesses in general.

As a result of the consistent efforts of the government of Punjab, this year, Pakistan witnessed an unprecedented increase of 11 points, rising from 147 to 136 on the ease of doing business ranking, which makes it our best performance since the inception of this report in 2003.

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