BY LORETTA B MANELE
The quality of regulations exceeds the quality of public services in the Pacific region.
This is according to Christopher Miller, a Senior Private Sector Specialist for the Pacific region who spoke during the virtual launch of World Bank’s October 2024 Pacific Economic Update “Diminishing Growth amid Global Uncertainty: Ramping up Investment in the Pacific” report early last week.
Miller said one of the key findings from the World Bank’s new global flagship report called “Be Ready or Business Ready” is that it was true for the Pacific that the quality of regulations exceeded the quality of the public services in almost every indicator.
“One nuance that we see in the Pacific is it’s not only the quality of the regulations as they’re written in the books. It’s also the public services, the government to business services that you use to deliver those regulations”
Miller said you can have a country that has pretty good regulations for a business to enter the market, there’s a lot of transparency in the processes, it’s easy to form a business name, it’s easy to register a company and there’s a little or no paid-in capital requirement.
However, while this is great, not having digital systems in place is actually where a lot of countries are being held back.
“If you don’t have digital systems, if I have to go make my payment in person and stand in line to do it, and if there’s no online registry of businesses and no one-stop shop, that’s actually where a lot of countries are being held back. The same applies for utility connections and for trade”
Miller said we still have a lot of countries where you actually have to go to a customs broker or to a customs agency and make that payment in person.
He emphasized that reforms around payment systems and digital payments will make a big difference.
