Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia ranked fourth in terms of the number of reforms that would contribute to improving business environment at the G20 level, said the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2019 report.

The report, published on Wednesday, said that the Kingdom progressed this year in four indices related to doing business, namely the index of protection of minority investors, the index of implementing contracts, the index of obtaining building license and cross-border trade index, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The Kingdom achieved its first progress since 2012 in the World Competitiveness Report (GCR) of 2018, issued recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF), where it ranked 39 out of 140 countries.

Among the countries, the Kingdoms’ rank shot up from 83 to 59 in terms of the index of implementing contracts while the rank in the index of protecting minority investors jumped from 10 to 7 at the global level and ranked first at the level of Gulf Cooperation Council states. According to the report, the Kingdom’s position in the cross-border trade index rose to 158 from 161 and the index of obtaining building license increased from 38 to 36.

The Kingdom ranked 92 out of 190 countries competing annually to be among the best countries in the ease of doing business. The Kingdom provided 51 reforms on all indicators measured by the report. Over the next three years, Saudi Arabia will benefit from such an improvement according to the mechanism of accepting reforms from the World Bank.