Opposition welcomes Ja's improvement in Doing Business Ranking

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), Shadow Minister of Industry, Competitiveness & Global Logistics, Anthony Hylton, is welcoming the reversal in Jamaica’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report 2020, after years of decline.

In a statement this afternoon, Hylton said “although the reversal in the rankings end three consecutive years of fall in Jamaica’s ranking in the global index, it also confirmed the continuing challenges being experienced by businesses in other areas, such as trading across the border where Jamaica continues to sit near the bottom of the rankings.”

READ: Jamaica moves up four places in Doing Business Rankings

He noted that while Jamaica improved its overall ranking to number 71, by four places from the last report, it falls very short of Jamaica’s highest ranking of 58 achieved in 2015.  

In addition, he said Jamaica continues to lag at number 136 in the trading across border score.

He noted that this measures the degree of difficulty experienced by businesses in navigating the bureaucracy in their attempt to export from Jamaica into other markets or to import goods into Jamaica.

The opposition spokesman expressed the view that the result of the latest report supports the recent findings in the Competitiveness Report that  Jamaica is slipping in economic growth due, in part, to the small size of its market and the resulting need to increase export growth.

Hylton called for the Government to pay urgent attention to the reform of the bureaucracy affecting the export trade in areas such as the facilities supporting agricultural trade at our airports and seaports, as well the Bureau of Standard and Customs.

“The rankings should give cause for reflection and a redoubling of efforts to improve the functioning of the bureaucracy in the areas affecting export trade in particular. We urge focused attention on those procedures in government that unduly burden exporters in time and the cost of compliance”, he said.

Hylton called for the government to urgently begin the Parliamentary review of the Customs Bill currently before the Joint Select Committee of the Parliament.

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