High marks for Botswana and Namibia in ‘Doing Business’ survey

Want to set up a cargo
transport or other business in
a BLSN country? Botswana
remains your best bet with
fewer headaches, cheaper
costs and fewer delays
than Namibia, Lesotho
and Swaziland. But SA
readers of the World Bank
and International Finance
Corporation’s “Doing
Business in 2011” report may
end up thinking “There’s no
place like home.”
For instance, of the 183
economies surveyed for the
annual report, Botswana and
Namibia rank relatively high
on the overall “ease of doing
business” scale, placing
at 52 and 69 respectively.
(Swaziland ranks 118 and
Lesotho ranks 138.) However,
SA ranks 34 and is amongst
the world’s top ten countries
when it comes to protecting
investors. The World Bank
commends Swaziland for
improving its protections
for investors more than any
other nation last year, but
the country still ranks 120,
compared to 74 for Namibia
and 44 for Botswana.
(Lesotho ranks 138).
Want to start a business? In
Botswana, 10 procedures are
required that will consume
61 working days. Lesotho
requires seven procedures
that take 40 days, but it’s
costly – ten times more
expensive than Botswana
to start a business there.
In Namibia, 12 procedures
are needed, taking 66 days.
While 12 procedures are
required in Swaziland, these
take fewer days (56).
By contrast, starting a
business in SA requires six
procedures over 22 days, and
closing a business takes two
years. Obtaining construction
permits takes 12 procedures,
but this consumes 174 days,
giving SA a ranking in this
category below Swaziland
and Namibia. SA’s six
procedures needed to register
property consume 24 days.
For cargo transporters
and clearing and forwarding
agents, the key indicator
may be ease of cross-border
trading. Here, unexpectedly,
SA does worse than
Swaziland, and none of the
countries in this article do
better than Lesotho, which
requires six documents
for exporting and eight for
importing, while cost per
exported container is US
$1680 and cost per imported
container is $1610.
In Swaziland seven export
documents are needed to
ship a container at $1754,
and ten documents to import
a container at $1849. In SA
eight export documents are
needed to send a container
off at a cost of $1531 and nine
documents are required to
import a container at $1807.
(The report calculates it takes
30 days to ship something
out of SA and 35 days to ship
something in, compared to
Swaziland’s 18 days to export
and 27 days to import.)
In Namibia, 11 documents
are needed for export, and
cost per exported container
is $1686. For importing, it’s
nine documents, and cost per
imported container is $1813.
Botswana importers and
exporters may have less
paperwork to contend with,
but costs are double those of
SA. Six export documents are
needed to ship out a container
costing $3010, while nine
import documents must
be completed to bring in a
container costing $3390
Are • your own experiences
consistent with the World
Bank findings, or do you
have an easier/harder
time and greater/lesser
expenses than the data
presented in the report?
Email your comments
to joyo@nowmedia.
co.za.