This shouldn't come as a surprise, Mauritius has the most sophisticated legal system in Africa and a relatively mature banking system along with a flexible workforce. What's more important to us is that we have moved up to 27 previously we were at 32 . The most significant improvement was in the ease of starting a business, this probably down to the 3 days it now takes to start up, that's our highest world ranking. Dealing with licenses somewhat improved however it should be better. Employing of workers, look for this to improve once the new labor legislation is passed.
Registration of property, Mauritius is ranked at 153, this is absurd, the government should move to digitize the whole regsitry system and make everything publicly available online. With the new property tax systems this could possibly happen. [The gov should move from just provide access to information on its portal, it needs to move to using the internet as tool for people to streamline their interaction with government, eg license application and status updates should be viewable online, property taxes should be payable online]
Another area where Mauritius is ranked quite low is the area of access to credit. First and foremost there needs to be serious review of the local banking sector, anyone in Mauritius can smell corruption and collusion from them, ofcourse their thuggery has been well documented. Two major issues off the top of my head, not sure how microfinance would work b/c the economy is pretty well developed and few people have a farm or small shop. More importantly people don't understand how to use credit and the tools available to them. Legislation should also be introduced to curtail the behavior of lenders, they should provide much more disclosure to their clients. As I have suggested before the government and policymakers needs to focus on the micro economy not just macro factors, they are taking some small steps in the competition bill.
Trading across borders not bad for such a small country, but there certainly is an improvement to be made with SADC, especially with regard to food. The price of food in Mauritius is astronomically high!
Enforcing Contracts/Closing a business: These are two areas where Mauritius should be ranked much higher, instead of 66. Mauritius has a sophisticated legal system, however efficiency needs to be improved in the legal system, hopefully the Privy Council sitting in Mauritius for the September term as of next year will be a catalyst. As for closing a business the insolvency laws need to be updated, as well as improving the administrative bottlenecks, the same way it's easy to start up a business it needs become easier to close a business.
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