The office for economic studies of the Parliament Research Center has conducted a study to find ways to improve Iran’s rank in the annual reports published by the World Bank known as the “Doing Business” reports.
According to the latest report, Iran ranks 130th in the world regarding the ease of doing business, showing an improvement by two places compared to the previous year.
However, the rank of the country needs to further improve. According to part of a new law on improving the business environment, the ministry of economic affairs and finance has been tasked with improving the rank of Iran in the WB global ranking reports.
The study suggests that the first step in improving the business environment in Iran is to define national indicators with the aim of monitoring the current situation of doing business in the country, as well as coming up with comprehensive plans for the future of business in Iran.
The study also says in terms of certain indicators, the ranks assigned to Iran seem to be “unreal”. For example, in terms of dealing with construction permits, the report puts Iran in 169th place among 189 countries. The report does not take into account recent advancements in the industry, the parliament study says.
A poor understanding of the English language, together with a lack of familiarity with specialized terminologies used in the WB questionnaire have also been highlighted as major contributors to Iran’s low ranking in the report, according to the study.
The “Doing Business” reports provide objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 189 economies and selected cities at the sub-national and regional level.
Launched in 2002, the project looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle.
These reports provide data on the ease of doing business, rank each location, and recommend reforms to improve performance in each of the indicator areas.
The first Doing Business report, published in 2003, covered 5 indicator sets and 133 economies. This year’s report (2014) covers 11 indicator sets and 189 economies.
