World Bank ranks Pakistan in lower tier for business environment

The World Bank has categorized Pakistan within the fourth quintile of its newly launched Business Ready (B-READY) assessment, indicating a business environment that faces significant challenges due to weak regulatory frameworks and public services. 

This categorization points to limitations in operational efficiency for businesses within the country.

The B-READY project, which succeeds and builds upon the World Bank Group’s previous Doing Business initiative, aims to evaluate the business and investment climates across the globe. 

The inaugural edition of the Business Ready report focuses on 50 economies, setting the stage for expanded geographical coverage and refined methodologies over a three-year rollout phase from 2024 to 2026.

In its 2024 report, the first to be issued during this phase, Pakistan achieved an overall operational efficiency score of 65.90, positioning it in the third quintile. 

This placement suggests that Pakistan’s business environment has a blend of strengths and weaknesses. Specific areas of assessment saw Pakistan scoring 91.50 in business entry, 54.25 in business location, and 59.21 in utility services. 

However, it scored lower in areas like labor (53.45), financial services (67.97), and international trade (45.71). The scores continued to reflect challenges in taxation (57.48), dispute resolution (41.99), market competition (46.24), and business insolvency (48.79).

The report also highlighted that while certain economies like Botswana, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lesotho, Morocco, the Philippines, and Seychelles, along with Pakistan, reached the top quintile in one of the topics, more developed economies such as Hungary and Singapore consistently scored high across multiple areas.

This detailed scoring and ranking in the B-READY report provide insights into the areas where Pakistan can potentially improve to enhance its global business competitiveness and attract more foreign investment.