SINGAPORE remains the easiest place to do business, while developing countries stepped up their pace of business-friendly reforms in the past year, according to a World Bank report published Tuesday.

Singapore, the dynamic Asian city state, held onto its business-friendly top ranking from last year in the "Doing Business 2016": Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency" report, which covers 189 economies.

There were barely any changes in the report's top 10, according to adjusted data using this year's criteria for both the 2015 and 2016 rankings.

New Zealand remained in the number-two position, followed by Denmark (3), South Korea (4), Hong Kong (5), Britain (6) and the United States (7). Sweden moved up a notch to number eight, switching places with Norway. Finland kept its 10th place.

The World Bank's annual "Doing Business" report, now in its 13th year, looks at the regulatory environment for small and medium-sized companies to see how it hampers or helps them conduct business, from starting up and paying taxes to registering property and trading across borders.

"A modern economy cannot function without regulation and, at the same time, it can be brought to a standstill through poor and cumbersome regulation," said Kaushik Basu, World Bank chief economist.

"The challenge of development is to tread this narrow path by identifying regulations that are good and necessary, and shunning ones that thwart creativity and hamper the functioning of small and medium enterprises."

y surveying and ranking economies, the 188-nation development lender hopes that its "report card" will encourage regulation that contributes to economic growth and prosperity for people.

Progress was tilted to the downside among the five emerging-market powers known as the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

China, the world's second-largest economy, slipped one notch to 84th place. Brazil fell to 116th from 111th and South Africa dropped four notches to 73rd.

But Russia, struggling with an economy hit by the plunge in oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, moved up in the ranks, to 51st place from 54.

And India advanced to 130th place from 134 last year. The International Monetary Fund said in a report early in October that India was poised for the fastest growth of any other emerging-market economy this year, at 7.3 percent, thanks in part to policy reforms.

Of the 189 economies surveyed through June 1, the World Bank found improvements in regulatory frameworks in 122 of them.

Among developing economies, 85 implemented 169 reforms during the past year, compared with 154 reforms the previous year.

Adding the 62 reforms undertaken by high-income economies, a total of 231 reforms were implemented, the report said. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 30 percent of the reforms, followed closely by Europe and Central Asia.

The World Bank highlighted the world's top 10 "improvers" -- economies that implemented at least three reforms during the past year and moved up the rankings scale: Costa Rica (58), Uganda (122), Kenya (108), Cyprus (47), Mauritania (168), Uzbekistan (87), Kazakhstan (41), Jamaica (64), Senegal (153), and Benin (158).

Eritrea held on to the worst ranking for businesses. The bottom 10 economies were largely in Africa, with the exceptions of Haiti (182) and Venezuela (186).

The Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) has recently opened an ATM booth at the Hotel Saint Martin in Agrabad of the port city Chittagong.

The booth has been inaugurated by Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Bangladesh,  Francois de Maricourt, Executive Director of Hotel Saint Martin Limited, Haji ASM Zakir Hossain Mizan, Senior Executive Director of Youngone Corporation, Jong Sop Yom, and Proprietor of Refaat Trading Agency, SM Monir Ahmed.

The ATM booth has been set up to support the banking needs of the surrounding commercial and financial hub of Agrabad.

Economic Reporter :The 352nd meeting of the Board of Directors of Social Islami Bank Limited was held at its corporate office on Tuesday.Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank Major (retd) Dr Md Rezaul Haque presided over the meeting, said a press release. SIBL Managing Director Md Shafiqur Rahman, its directors and senior executives were present at the meeting.

Seven banks out of the total of 56 posted negative year-on-year credit growth in August -- a manifestation of the central bank's growing compliance requirements.

“We don't want to go for aggressive lending. Rather, we have emphasised recovery to make the bank strong,” said Ahmed Kamal Khan Chowdhury, managing director of Prime Bank, the only local private financial institution to have registered negative credit growth.

Its credit growth in August from a year earlier was a negative 4.92 percent, according to data from Bangladesh Bank. Yet, Prime Bank is not worried as it has become extremely cautious about its lending activities.

State-owned BASIC is the other local bank with negative credit growth.

The remaining five banks that have posted negative credit growth are foreign commercial banks: Bank of Ceylon, Citibank, HSBC, National Bank of Pakistan and State Bank of India.

The average credit growth of the industry was positive, 11.62 percent. The local private banks' credit grew nearly 15 percent and the state banks' 4.48 percent.

Prime Bank is focusing on corporate banking, which is going through challenging conditions for the past two years, according to Chowdhury.

The unpredictable fall in prices of commodities in international markets has hit hard some local conglomerates and halted their business expansion plans, according to Chowdhury.

The rising compliance issue in the readymade garment industry and the BB's increasing regulations on the banking industry have further tightened the banks' hands for lending.

“It is time to become compliant and Prime Bank will benefit from these moves next year,” Chowdhury added.

Rashed Maqsood, country officer of Citi, which posted 18 percent negative credit growth year-on-year in August, echoed Chowdhury's words on the sluggish corporate banking scenario. Citi lends only to corporates in Bangladesh.

“The segment where we do business is not expanding. We have little to do with the small and medium enterprises, where lending is increasing slowly,” Maqsood said.

Earlier, many companies expanded their businesses by diverting the working capital they took from banks, but it is not possible now, he said.

As a result, the demand for working capital has also come down, he said.

“Things are monitored closely now. In fact, the banking industry is coming back from indiscipline,” Maqsood added.

Alauddin A Majid, chairman of the troubled BASIC Bank, identified two major reasons behind his bank's negative loan growth.

Some of BASIC's accounts are blocked and it cannot show the figure in the outstanding loans, he said.

The other reason is the employees' failure to net prospective new customers, particularly small and medium enterprises, which, he said, are the niche market for his bank.

HSBC Bangladesh, which has posted 1.29 percent negative credit growth, declined to comment on the issue.

State Bank of India registered highest 22.63 percent negative credit growth and the National Bank of Pakistan 1.98 percent negative growth.

Standard Chartered Bank, which is the largest foreign bank operating in Bangladesh, has posted 8.25 percent credit growth in August.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman has urged banks and other financial institutions to come forward to bring people of the erstwhile enclaves into the mainstream economy. 

Rahman spoke while visiting the former Dahola Khagrabari enclave in Debiganj upazila on Sunday, where he handed over various items donated by different banks to the local people. 

A number of banks together contributed some Tk 2.5 crore from their CSR funds for the ex-enclave dwellers. Some of the money was used to buy 334 tube-wells, 192 sanitary latrines, 19 computers, and 1,300 school bags among other things, which the governor distributed during the event. 

Some 90 sewing machines, 183 bicycles for female students, 110 rickshaw-vans, 146 bundles of corrugated-iron sheets and 30 cows were also distributed.

Also, Tk 42 lakh has been earmarked for the construction of school buildings, and Tk 15.5 lakh for education scholarships and 100 school-benches, UNB reports.

Bangladesh has introduced itself as a model for sustainable economic growth and development, and has already transformed into a low-middle income country, the governor said. 

He visited a daylong banking fair organised by the central bank, and inaugurated two branches of National Bank in Debiganj and Patgram, as well as two schools for the former enclave dwellers during the same event.

News:The Daily Star/26-oct-2015