Ghana has moved an impressive 13 places up on the Trading Across Borders in the latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report, an indication that the Ghana National Single Window (GNSW) programme initiated by the government is already paying off.
The Doing Business 2017 report, titled “Equal opportunity for Allâ€, released last week, showed that Ghana was placed at position 108 out of 190 countries surveyed in the Overall Ranking of Ease of Doing Business- an improvement from 111 in the previous report.
In the sub-Saharan Africa sub-region, Ghana ranked in the Top 10, coming 9th, out of the 47 countries ranked in the region. This is evidence that the Government of Ghana is pursuing active reforms to ensure the Ease of Doing Business in Ghana. The Top 10 countries in the region are Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Seychelles, Zambia and Lesotho.
In the “Trading Across Borders†Indicator, one of the 10 indicators measured, Ghana improved by 13 places, coming in at 154 from a previous ranking of 167. This indicator showed that the country recorded the most improvement in the ease of doing business reforms, compared with the other nine indicators, with the next improvement achieved by the “Resolving Insolvency†Indicator; an improvement of three places.
The “Trading Across Borders†rankings measures the time and cost (excluding tariffs) associated with three sets of procedures: documentary compliance, border compliance and domestic transport; within the overall process of exporting or importing a shipment of goods – One of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) adopted by the Ghana National Single Window Programme.
“Ghana made trading across borders easier by removing the mandatory pre-arrival assessment inspection at origin for imported products,†the annual report stated.