Kenya has been ranked the third world’s most conducive business environment and Africa’s most reformed country for the second consecutive year. This is according to a World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 report, which states that the country climbed 21 places to 92nd from 113th last year.
The report attributes the significant step to the country’s implemented regulatory reforms aimed at enabling local entrepreneurs to do business in the country.
“Much as Kenya’s gains were associated with efficiency-related measures such as fewer procedures, shorter time periods and lower costs, the quality of regulation influenced Kenya upward score of 61.22 in doing business 2017 from 57.50 in doing business 2016,” stated the report.
Speaking in Nairobi during the launch of the report, President Uhuru Kenyatta described the country’s achievement as a vindication of successful pro-business reforms in pursuit of the national development agenda.
“The improvements we have made this year are as result of the hard work over the past two years when we instituted alongside our World Bank partners and private sector to improve the efficiency of government operations through regulation and legal reforms meant to improve the reality of business operations on the ground,” said the President.
Crediting the reforms across the regulatory and legal indicators, the Head of State said the country is already halfway to achieving its target to be among the most reformed.
“Despite consecutive improvements, we will continue working on closing the gap in many key areas that impact the ease of doing business in our country especially on areas with the lowest score as it is along arduous path filled with challenges to attain our global goal to becoming the top 50 most reformed globally by 2020,” Kenyatta reiterated.
Trade Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed said Kenya instituted five reforms in the areas of starting a business, getting electricity and registering property, protecting minority investors and resolving insolvency.
