2016年-世界发展银行全球_Doing_Business_Economy_Profile_2017___Saudi_Arabia_112页_1mb

Doing Business 2017: Saudi Arabia Summary

Core Content

The Doing Business 2017 report by the World Bank evaluates the regulatory environment for businesses across 190 economies, including Saudi Arabia. It measures and tracks changes in regulations across 11 key areas in the business life cycle, such as starting a business, getting electricity, and resolving insolvency. The report provides both an ease of doing business ranking and a distance to frontier (DTF) score, which helps assess how close an economy is to the best regulatory practices globally.

Key Indicators and Performance

Ease of Doing Business Ranking

• Saudi Arabia's Rank (2017): 94
• Saudi Arabia's Rank (2016): 96
• Change in Rank: Improved by 2 positions

Distance to Frontier (DTF) Score

• Saudi Arabia's DTF (2017): 61.11
• Saudi Arabia's DTF (2016): 60.33
• Change in DTF: Increased by 0.78 points

The DTF score reflects the absolute distance from the best regulatory practices, with 100 representing the frontier.

Main Topics and Key Findings

Starting a Business

• Rank (2017): 147
• DTF Score (2017): 77.09
• Procedures (Men): 12
• Time (Men): 15 days
• Cost (Men): 4.1% of income per capita
• Procedures (Women): 15
• Time (Women): 18 days
• Cost (Women): 4.1% of income per capita

Saudi Arabia has a relatively high number of procedures for women compared to men, reflecting gender-specific regulatory challenges.

Dealing with Construction Permits

• Rank (2017): 15
• DTF Score (2017): 80.66
• Procedures: 13
• Time: 106 days
• Cost: 0.5% of warehouse value
• Building Quality Control Index: 12/15

Saudi Arabia is among the top performers in this category, with a strong building quality control index.

Getting Electricity

• Rank (2017): 28
• DTF Score (2017): 84.81
• Procedures: 4
• Time: 61 days
• Cost: 31.4% of income per capita
• Reliability of Supply and Transparency of Tariff Index: 6/8

Saudi Arabia has a good DTF score but still faces relatively high costs compared to the best performers.

Registering Property

• Rank (2017): 32
• DTF Score (2017): 78.51
• Procedures: 3
• Time: 3 days
• Cost: 0.0% of property value
• Quality of Land Administration Index: 9.5/30

Saudi Arabia has a strong performance in registering property, with minimal time and cost. However, the quality of land administration remains low compared to global best practices.

Getting Credit

• Rank (2017): 82
• DTF Score (2017): 50.00
• Strength of Legal Rights Index: 2/12
• Depth of Credit Information Index: 8/8
• Credit Registry Coverage: 0%
• Credit Bureau Coverage: 48.3%

Credit access is a major challenge for Saudi Arabia, with low credit bureau coverage and weak legal rights for creditors.

Protecting Minority Investors

• Rank (2017): 63
• DTF Score (2017): 58.33
• Strength of Minority Investor Protection Index: 5.8/10
• Conflict of Interest Regulation Index: 6.7/10
• Shareholder Governance Index: 5.0/10

Saudi Arabia shows moderate performance in protecting minority investors, with room for improvement in legal frameworks and governance.

Paying Taxes

• Rank (2017): 69
• DTF Score (2017): 77.04
• Number of Payments: 3
• Time (hours/year): 67 hours
• Total Tax Rate (% of profit): 15.7%
• Postfiling Index: 10.9/100

Tax compliance is relatively efficient, but the postfiling process is still weak compared to the best practices.

Trading Across Borders

• Rank (2017): 158
• DTF Score (2017): 49.62
• Time to Export (Border Compliance): 69 hours
• Cost to Export (Border Compliance): $264
• Time to Export (Documentary Compliance): 90 hours
• Cost to Export (Documentary Compliance): $105
• Time to Import (Border Compliance): 228 hours
• Cost to Import (Border Compliance): $779
• Time to Import (Documentary Compliance): 131 hours
• Cost to Import (Documentary Compliance): $390

Saudi Arabia has a poor ranking in trading across borders, with high time and cost for both imports and exports.

Enforcing Contracts

• Rank (2017): 105
• DTF Score (2017): 55.07
• Time (days): 575
• Cost (% of claim): 27.5%
• Quality of Judicial Processes Index: 6/18

Contract enforcement is a significant challenge, with long time and high cost for resolving disputes.

Resolving Insolvency

• Rank (2017): 169
• DTF Score (2017): 0.00
• Recovery Rate: 0.0 cents on the dollar
• Time (years): No practice
• Cost (% of estate): No practice
• Strength of Insolvency Framework Index: 0.0/16

Saudi Arabia has one of the worst insolvency resolution systems, with no formal process in place.

Key Methodological Changes in 2017

• Expanded paying taxes indicator to include postfiling processes such as tax refunds, audits, and appeals.
• Added a gender dimension to four indicators: starting a business, registering property, enforcing contracts, and labor market regulation.
• Introduced a new pilot indicator on selling to the government.
• Included data for Somalia, bringing the total number of economies covered to 190.

Comparison with Comparator Economies

• The report provides comparative data with other economies in the Middle East and North Africa (e.g., Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, UAE) and global best performers (e.g., New Zealand, Singapore, Iceland, Luxembourg, Estonia).
• Saudi Arabia performs better than some comparator economies in areas like construction permits and property registration, but lags in others such as credit access and insolvency resolution.

Conclusion

The Doing Business 2017 report highlights that Saudi Arabia has made some progress in improving its regulatory environment, particularly in areas like construction permits and property registration. However, it still faces significant challenges in credit access, contract enforcement, and insolvency resolution. The inclusion of a gender dimension and the expansion of the paying taxes indicator provide a more comprehensive understanding of the business environment, helping policymakers identify areas for reform.