2014年-世界发展银行全球_Doing_Business_Economy_Profile_2015___South_Africa_93页_1mb

Doing Business 2015 - South Africa Summary

Core Content Overview

The Doing Business 2015 report evaluates the ease of doing business in South Africa by analyzing regulatory environments across 11 key areas in the business life cycle. The report uses a standardized methodology to measure and compare regulatory performance across 189 economies. It provides both rankings and distance to frontier (DTF) scores, which indicate how close an economy is to the best regulatory practices globally.

South Africa's overall DB2015 rank is 43, a decline of 6 from DB2014. Its DTF score is 71.1, a slight decrease of 0.5 from the previous year. The report also includes data for comparator economies (Botswana, Mauritius, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom) and highlights areas where South Africa performs well and where it lags behind.

Main Topics and Key Findings

Starting a Business

• DB2015 Rank: 61
• DB2014 Rank: 55
• DTF Score: 89.43 (unchanged)
• Procedures: 5
• Time (days): 19
• Cost (% of income per capita): 0.3
• Best Performer: New Zealand (rank 1, DTF score 99.96)

South Africa maintains a relatively high ranking and DTF score in this category, indicating a relatively efficient process for starting a business. However, it still lags behind the global best performer, New Zealand.

Dealing with Construction Permits

• DB2015 Rank: 32
• DB2014 Rank: 32
• DTF Score: 81.65 (unchanged)
• Procedures: 16
• Time (days): 48
• Cost (% of warehouse value): 0.9
• Best Performer: Singapore (rank 1, DTF score 95.53)

South Africa performs well in this area, with a low cost and moderate time compared to comparator economies, but it still trails behind the best performer, Singapore.

Getting Electricity

• DB2015 Rank: 158
• DB2014 Rank: 156
• DTF Score: 55.74 (slightly improved)
• Procedures: 5
• Time (days): 226
• Cost (% of income per capita): 729.5
• Best Performer: Republic of Korea (rank 1, DTF score 99.83)

South Africa ranks poorly in this category, with a long time and high cost to get electricity. It lags significantly behind the best performer, Korea, and some comparator economies like Mauritius and Thailand.

Registering Property

• DB2015 Rank: 97
• DB2014 Rank: 92
• DTF Score: 66.02 (slightly decreased)
• Procedures: 7
• Time (days): 23
• Cost (% of property value): 6.2
• Best Performer: Georgia (rank 1, DTF score 99.88)

South Africa's property registration process is moderately efficient but still behind several comparator economies. It ranks lower than the global best performer, Georgia.

Getting Credit

• DB2015 Rank: 52
• DB2014 Rank: 30
• DTF Score: 60.00 (slightly decreased)
• Strength of Legal Rights Index: 5
• Depth of Credit Information Index: 7
• Best Performer: New Zealand (rank 1, DTF score 100)

South Africa has improved its rank from 30 to 52, but its DTF score dropped. It scores moderately on the legal rights and credit information indices, though it lags behind the global best performer.

Protecting Minority Investors

• DB2015 Rank: 17
• DB2014 Rank: 16
• DTF Score: 67.50 (unchanged)
• Strength of Minority Investor Protection Index: 6.8
• Best Performer: New Zealand (rank 1, DTF score 81.67)

South Africa performs well in protecting minority investors, ranking 17th and scoring 67.5 on the DTF scale. It is among the top performers in this category.

Paying Taxes

• DB2015 Rank: 19
• DB2014 Rank: 18
• DTF Score: 88.73 (slightly improved)
• Payments per year: 7
• Time (hours per year): 200
• Best Performer: United Arab Emirates (rank 1, DTF score 99.44)

South Africa has a relatively efficient tax system, ranking 19th and showing a slight improvement in DTF score. It still lags behind the UAE, which has the best tax performance.

Trading Across Borders

• DB2015 Rank: 100
• DB2014 Rank: 100
• DTF Score: 71.05 (unchanged)
• Documents to Export: 5
• Time to Export (days): 16
• Cost to Export (US$ per container): 1,830
• Best Performer: Singapore (rank 1, DTF score 96.47)

South Africa ranks last among comparator economies in this category, indicating significant challenges in cross-border trade. The process is slow and costly, with Singapore leading the way.

Enforcing Contracts

• DB2015 Rank: 46
• DB2014 Rank: 46
• DTF Score: 66.14 (unchanged)
• Time (days): 600
• Cost (% of claim): 33.2
• Best Performer: Singapore (rank 1, DTF score 89.54)

South Africa's contract enforcement is relatively efficient, but it is still far behind the best performer, Singapore, in terms of time and cost.

Resolving Insolvency

• DB2015 Rank: 39
• DB2014 Rank: 36
• DTF Score: 64.51 (slightly decreased)
• Time (years): 2
• Cost (% of estate): 18
• Recovery Rate: 35.7
• Best Performer: Finland (rank 1, DTF score 93.85)

South Africa ranks relatively high in resolving insolvency, with a moderate time and cost. However, it is still behind the global best performer, Finland.

Key Methodological Changes in Doing Business 2015

1. Ranking Methodology: The ease of doing business ranking and all topic-level rankings are now based on distance to frontier (DTF) scores.
2. Second City Data: For 11 large economies, including South Africa, data for a second city have been added to enhance accuracy and comparability.
3. Revised Indicators:
   • Getting Credit: The strength of legal rights index and depth of credit information index now range from 0–12 and 0–8, respectively, and only credit bureaus covering at least 5% of the adult population are eligible for scoring.
   • Paying Taxes: The total tax rate is now weighted in a nonlinear fashion.
   • Protecting Minority Investors: The scope was expanded to include shareholder governance and corporate governance.
4. Updated Benchmarks:
   • For enforcing contracts, the claim value is now set at twice the income per capita or $5,000, whichever is higher.
   • For dealing with construction permits, the cost is now based on 50 times income per capita.

Conclusion

The Doing Business 2015 report highlights that South Africa has a moderate business environment, with strengths in protecting minority investors and paying taxes, but challenges in getting electricity, trading across borders, and contract enforcement. While the country has improved in some areas, such as getting credit and registering property, it still faces significant obstacles compared to global leaders. The report serves as a valuable tool for policymakers to identify regulatory bottlenecks and guide reforms.