Georgia is the easiest place in emerging Europe to do business according to the World Bank’s Doing Business report and this achievement was recognized at the conference held on February 23 in Washington, D.C.
The conference “Fifteen Years of Doing Business: Opportunities for Future Directions” reviewed the Doing Business Indicators of past 15 years. Georgia ranked ninth among the world’s 190 countries according to the 15th anniversary edition of the World Bank Group’s annual Doing Business report. The report shows that Georgia is a top performing economy among the countries of Europe and Central Asia, where it takes only two procedures and two days to register a new business, compared with nine procedures and 25 days in 2003.
The participants of the conference highly evaluated Georgia’s leading positions in Doing Business report and stated this could help country attract more investments, according to MFA of Georgia.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) intends to start implementing a new program in March-April 2018 to provide consulting assistance to Belarus according to Olga Shcherbina, head of the IFC representative office in Belarus. The statement was made before she met with members of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on 19 February.
The official stressed: “We are considering the development of a new program to provide consulting assistance to Belarus. The program will be aimed at improving the business environment, the investment climate. We are looking at several components, which may become part of the program. The program is supposed to run for four years.” The active phase of the program’s implementation is planned to begin in March-April 2018.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is part of the World Bank Group. “Our program is part of the World Bank’s new strategy for Belarus,”- noted the head of the IFC representative office. She emphasized that the IFC is one of the largest investors in Belarus. “So far some $730 million has been invested in 56 projects in Belarus. We are ready to consider projects with the private sector, public private partnership projects, or pre-privatization projects if any are to be implemented. We are in no way limited with regard to the projects we can implement here,”- said Olga Shcherbina. She stated that $30-35 million is the minimal volume of investments earmarked for this year.
Vladislav Shchepov, Chairman of the Economic Policy Commission, Deputy Chairman of the Budget and Finance Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus, emphasized that Belarusian MPs would like to discuss key topics related to the legislative process with IFC representatives. “After all, Ordinance No.7 has been adopted in Belarus. Its adoption entails a great deal of legislation changes. Improving the investment climate is another direction in our work. The representative office of the International Finance Corporation provides consulting assistance in this regard and implements concrete investment projects. We hope to discuss avenues of the IFC’s cooperation with the House of Representatives, with individual commissions in order to put together an interaction plan,”- he stressed.
Post-Soviet countries become easier places to do business
