| Azlan Othman |
BRUNEI Darussalam has clocked in at 55th place globally for Ease of Doing Business (EODB) – previously known as Distance to Frontier (DTF) – scoring 72.03 out of 100 overall and showing progress in EODB scores across four indicators, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2019, which measures and benchmarks the domestic business regulatory environments of 190 economies.
The ranking is a huge improvement on the Sultanate’s showing in the Doing Business 2015 Report, a jump of 50 places from 105th.
Progress on Brunei’s business reform agenda is spearheaded and regularly monitored by the country’s Ease of Doing Business Steering Committee, which is chaired by Minister of Energy, Manpower and Industry Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mat Suny bin Haji Mohd Hussein and collectively delivered by ‘Champion Groups’ from departments and agencies under the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE), Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism, Ministry of Development, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Communications, Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam (AMBD) and DARe (Darussalam Enterprise).
The top 10 performers in this year’s Doing Business Report, in order of ranking, are New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Georgia, Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom and Macedonia.
Within ASEAN, only Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia recorded improvements in rankings, with Brunei maintaining its fourth position behind Singapore (2), Malaysia (15) and Thailand (27); followed by Vietnam (69), Indonesia (73), Philippines (124), Cambodia (138), Lao (154) and Myanmar (171).
In the Asia-Pacific region, Brunei Darussalam is positioned at 13th, behind Republic of Korea (4), Taiwan (5), Japan (11) and China (12); and ahead of India (18).
According to the report, Brunei Darussalam improved its EODB scores in the indicators on ‘Getting Credit’ (1), ‘Starting A Business’ (16), ‘Getting Electricity’ (31) and ‘Paying Taxes’ (84).
For the ‘Getting Credit’ indicator, which is championed by AMBD through the introduction of their Credit Scoring system, Brunei is shown to be on par with New Zealand in terms of the strength of their credit reporting systems and borrowers information, due to the credit registry assigning credit scores to banks to better inform the public of their lending decisions, thus easing the process for businesses to obtain financial support.
Improvements under the ‘Starting A Business’ criteria, which is championed by the MoFE, are due to reforms made by the Registry of Companies and Business Names (ROCBN) such as consolidating the application for the incorporation of companies and reservation of company name into a single step, as well as removing the requirement for Share Certificates to be stamped upon company incorporation under the Stamp Act.
These changes have played a big part in propelling Brunei up 42 places under this indicator to land among the top 20 in the world.
Brunei has also shown significant improvement for the ‘Paying Taxes’ indicator, jumping 20 places from last year’s report. Progress in the index, which is championed by the MoFE, is due to the full implementation of the e-Amanah Employee Provident Fund payment system by all registered companies in Brunei Darussalam.
The system has been influential in increasing the overall number of tax payments made yearly and cutting down the time taken to pay taxes.
Despite its efforts to improve business-related process across all the indicators, Brunei has slipped in the rankings for seve-ral indicators, such as ‘Getting Electricity’ (31), ‘Dealing with Construction Permits’ (55), ‘Registering Property’ (142), ‘Trading Across Borders’ (149), ‘Protecting Minority Investors’ (48), ‘Enforcing Contracts’ (67) and ‘Resolving Insolvency’ (64).
This is due to the increasing competitiveness of and rate of reforms implemented by other participating economies.
In this respect, the country has committed to continue stepping up efforts to streamline, deliver and enforce more efficient and innovative business processes and regulations, in order to remain globally competitive and improve its rankings for the indicators that it is showing weakness in.
These lagging areas however cannot mask the significant improvements made by Brunei in its Doing Business ranking over the past five years, a mark of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s Government’s efforts to diversify and grow the economy by enhancing the business ecosystem.
The country notably also improved its rank in the recently released World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, climbing two positions to end up 62nd out of 140 economies, showing improvements in scores of various indicators related to ease of doing business, including ‘Efficiency of Clearance Process’, ‘Ease of Hiring Foreign Labour’, ‘Financing of SMEs’, ‘Growth of Innovative Companies’, ‘Insolvency Recovery Rate’, ‘Attitudes toward Entrepreneurial Risk’, as well as ‘Companies Embracing Disruptive Ideas’.