Economies in the Caribbean have carried out a record 19 reforms over the past year to make it easier for domestic small and medium-size enterprises to do business, the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2020 study says. Of the 16 Caribbean economies - The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominican Republic, The Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Puerto Rico (U.S), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, and Trinidad and Tobago - 11 implemented business-facilitating reforms. Puerto Rico (U.S.) and Jamaica were the region’s top-ranked economies, ranking 65th and 71st globally.
Economic reforms that remove obstacles to entrepreneurship are widely seen as paving the way for greater economic growth in the region. Improvements in the Caribbean were concentrated in starting a business, getting electricity, paying taxes and enforcing contracts.
With four reforms, the Bahamas implemented the most business-facilitating measures, making the process of starting a business faster and less expensive. Authorities cut the time needed for an entrepreneur to complete all required formalities to start a new business in half to 11.5 days. The Bahamas also strengthened minority investor rights by increasing conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements, clarifying ownership and control structures, and requiring greater corporate transparency.
Barbados introduced three major reforms and deployed new software to process electrical connection applications. As a result, it takes 10 fewer days to connect a new warehouse to the electrical grid. Barbados also adopted a law regulating all aspects of mediation as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
Belize, Dominican Republic and Jamaica implemented two business-climate-improving reforms each. As a result, compliance with import border requirements was accelerated to 30 hours from 48 hours.Jamaica now ranks 6th globally in the starting a business indicator. Connecting a new warehouse to the electrical grid costs 423.4% of income per capita on average in the region, half the global average of 1,049.8%.
However, changes are still needed to some of the region’s other cumber some business systems and the Caribbean still underperforms in the areas of registering property and getting credit. See the full study and its datasets at www.doingbusiness.org
