Zambia improves credit ranking

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World Bank

ZAMBIA has improved its ranking on getting credit from 24 last year to 19 out of 189 countries on the World Bank’s ease of doing business report for 2016.

And the country has improved its ranking on paying taxes from 81 last year to 46 this year out of 189 countries globally.
According to the report, which was released last week, the improvement has been attributed to the provision of credit scores by the credit bureau.
Last year, the credit bureau improved access to credit information by exchanging credit information with retailers and utilities.

 

This entails that the credit bureaux provide financial information to banks which they require in order to reduce the risk of lending and thus provide adequate information on individual companies’ financial status.
This reduces the banks’ risk associated with lending and thus provides the much-needed capital to the private sector for its growth and development.
And Zambia has improved its ranking on paying taxes from 81 last year to 46 this year out of 189 countries.
The World Bank states in the report that paying taxes has become easier for companies through the implementation of the electronic filing and payment for value added tax (VAT).
At the same time, Zambia made paying taxes more costly by increasing the property transfer tax rate.
However, the country has dropped in its rankings on trading across borders attributed to the increased documentary and border compliance time for both exporting and importing by shifting all clearance authority to a central processing centre at the initial stage of implementing a web-based customs platform (ASYCUDA World).
Ten areas are included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property and getting credit.
The others are protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
Doing business also measures labour market regulation, which is not included in this year’s ranking.

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