World Bank Says Caribbean Countries Improve Environment to Attract Investments

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Wednesday, 09 September 2009 16:23

By tami

The World Bank said Wednesday that Caribbean governments have been intensifying their reform efforts in order to attract foreign investment.

In the seventh edition of “Doing Business 2010: Reforming through Difficult Times”, the bank said regional economies “tend to be inspired by the reform activity” of their neighbours.

“Caribbean economies have intensified efforts to improve the business environment this year,” said Sylvia Solf, lead author of the report.

“Around the world, more small-island states are paying attention to the quality of business regulation to make their economies more competitive,” she said, adding “making it easy to start and run a business is always important, but especially during these difficult times”.

The report said three Caribbean islands—Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia reformed for the first time.

The Washington-based financial institution said Grenada eased contract enforcement and improved customs administration while St. Kitts and Nevis implemented an electronic data interchange system that expedited cross-border trade.

In the case of St. Lucia it said  that island eased business start-up by introducing an electronic company registration system.

“With ongoing training of customs agents and brokers, and implementation of electronic reference sources, Grenada has reduced the time for trading across Borders,” the report said.

It said St. Vincent and the Grenadines made it easier to start a business by reducing the corporate income tax rate from 37.5 to 35 per cent, “to be further reduced to 32.5 per cent from 2009 onward”.

“Business start-up was eased by abolishing the requirement to have a company seal,” the World Bank said, noting that in  Jamaica, the Bruce Golding government cut the property transfer tax from 6.5 per cent of property value to five per cent.

The report said Haiti expanded access to credit by “broadening the types of assets that can be used as collateral and sped up trade by implementing an online document handling system and 24-hour port operations.”

In Guyana, it said the Bharrat Jagdeo administration eased business start-up by “applying a flat registration fee for all companies, regardless of their capital amount,” and removing the duty payable on incorporation.

“It also streamlined registration with the tax authorities with the introduction of a single tax identification number for corporate, value added, and labour taxes,” the report said, adding that “implementation of an electronic declaration system reduced customs clearance times for exports and imports”.

The report said Suriname implemented new valuation requirements “to ensure proper tax payments.”

It said “no major reform was recorded” for Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago.

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The World Bank said “Doing Business” analyses regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycles, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business.

However, it noted that it does  not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors.

 

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