Doing Business 2019: Tajikistan

• In absolute terms, Tajikistan improved in the Distance to Frontier (measuring how far each country is from global regulatory best practice) by 0.08 points to 57.11 in the World Bank Group’s report Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform.
• But other countries reformed faster: out of 190 countries worldwide, Tajikistan ranked 126^th , down by three positions from last year’s ranking. The relative ranking per sub-categories is as follows:

• Tajikistan reformed one area measured by Doing Business in 2017/18, under the Trading Across Borders indicator:
  • On March 9, 2018, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement on the organization of simplified customs procedures for goods traded between the two economies.
  • This agreement introduced the Simplified Customs Corridor, which streamlined customs clearance between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on several types of goods.
  • As a result, Time to export: Border compliance in hours reduced from 75 (in 2016/17) to 51 (in 2017/18).
• There were no improvements in other indicators, implying that Tajikistan would need to reform more and faster not only to improve its overall ranking in the Doing Business report but also—and most critically—to provide the private sector with an environment that creates a perspective, instils confidence, and encourages a faster pace of investments, innovation, and employment creation.

Europe and Central Asia Perspective

• Georgia, in 6^th place in the Doing Business rankings, is the highest ranked economy in the Europe and Central Asia region, followed by FYR Macedonia (10), Azerbaijan (25), and Kazakhstan (28).
• The region also hosts two of this year’s top improvers: Azerbaijan (with 8 reforms) and Turkey (with 7 reforms).
• The region’s lowest ranked economies are Tajikistan (126) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (89).
• Other large economies in the region and their rankings are the Russian Federation (31), Turkey (43), and Ukraine (71).
• The region’s economies perform well in the Doing Business areas of Registering Property with an average rank of (49) and Protecting Minority Investors (49). It takes 20 days in the region to complete all procedures required to register the transfer of property, and cost only 2.6% of the property value, compared to 4.2% among high income OECD economies.
• The region underperforms in Dealing with Construction Permits (84) and Getting Electricity (88).

Rankings Data for Europe and Central Asia*

Noteworthy items:

• Changes in this year’s report include renaming of the distance-to-frontier measurement to ease of doing business score, to better reflect its main purpose of measuring absolute progress towards best practices (without any change in the actual calculation).
• There are no changes to the methodology this year or to the calculation of the Doing Business Score, which underpins the Doing Business rankings.
• This year, Doing Business includes four case studies that focus on the benefits of:
  • mandatory and annual training of both public officials and users of business and land registries;
  • training for customs clearance officials and brokers;
  • robust regulatory framework governing the electricity sector and accrediting the electrician profession;
  • training and specialization of judges.

*Source: Doing Business database.  

Note: The rankings are based on the average of each economy’s scores for the 10 topics included in this year’s aggregate ranking. This measure shows how close each economy is to global best practices in business regulation. A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions.