| Danial Norjidi |
TWO members of the World Bank’s Doing Business team, Nadia Novik and Antoni Albert Nogues Comas, yesterday concluded a nine-day visit to Brunei Darussalam.
During the visit, they met with various government agencies and private sector companies to assess and verify the reforms being implemented by the Brunei government to improve the business environment.
Novik and Comas spoke about their visit in an interview with the Weekend Bulletin yesterday.
“We have been here for slightly more than a week now, and the main goal of this visit is to collect field data on the business regulations and business practice in Brunei,” said Novik. “These several days, we have had several meetings with public authorities.
“We had information sessions with each of the champion groups on Ease of Doing Business. We had several field visits, where we would go to the authority and inspect the counters. We talked with people and the staff of the specific place, and also with visitors. And after that, we held several meetings with private sector experts to receive their feedback on any changes in the regulations and practices in the last couple of years.”
Antoni Albert Nogues Comas and Nadia Novik, representatives from the World Bank’s Doing Business team. – DANIAL NORJIDI
The World Bank’s Doing Business Index is one of the benchmarks used by Brunei Darussalam to gauge the progress of ongoing efforts to improve the business environment.
Their itinerary included site visits, presentations and technical discussions with the relevant agencies on implemented reforms which include legislative and process changes, as well as new business initiatives.
The compiled data will assist in determining Brunei Darussalam’s performance in the upcoming Doing Business Report 2018 to be released in October, which measures the efficiency and strength of business regulations in 190 economies worldwide.
Various departments and agencies were engaged for the various Doing Business indicators. The Registry of Companies and Business Names (ROCBN); the Revenue Division, Ministry of Finance; and Employees Trust Fund (TAP) were involved in the Starting a Business indicator.
The Revenue Division and TAP were also engaged for the Paying Taxes indicator.
For the Trading Across Borders indicator, the Royal Customs and Excise Department, the Ports Department and the Ministry of Communications were engaged, while Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam (AMBD) was engaged with the Getting Credit indicator.
AMBD and ROCBN were also engaged for the Protecting Minority Investors indicator.
The indicator for Dealing with Construction Permits saw engagement with the Authority for Building Control and Construction Industry (ABCi), the Department of Town and Country Planning, and the Ministry of Development.
Meanwhile, the Land Department and Ministry of Development were engaged with the Registering Property indicator.
Brunei Darussalam’s performance in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index has progressively improved over the last few years. The country was ranked 105th out of 190 economies in the Doing Business 2015 report with a Distance to Frontier (DTF) score of 58.02; ranked 97th with a DTF score of 60.28 in 2016; and ranked 72nd with a DTF score of 65.51 in the Doing Business 2017 report.
The Distance to Frontier score measures the distance of an economy to the ‘frontier’, which represents the international best practice. An economy’s distance to frontier is reflected on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest performance and 100 the frontier. The DTF score helps assess an economy’s absolute performance over time.
When asked about their impressions of Brunei, Novik said, “It’s a very welcoming environment, with a lot of interesting places.
“We are very grateful for both the public and private sectors for accommodating our visit and taking the time to meet us,” she added.
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