Introduction

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers.

In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The data set covers 47 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 25 in East Asia and the Pacific, 25 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa and 8 in South Asia, as well as 31 OECD high-income economies. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why.

This regional profile presents the Doing Business 2014 indicators for economies in Southern African Development Community (SADC). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European Union (EU), Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2013 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January-December 2012).

The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other areas important to business – such as an economy’s proximity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other than those related to trading across borders and getting electricity), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions – are not directly studied by Doing Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of business, generally a local limited liability company operating in the largest business city.

Because standard assumptions are used in the data collection, comparisons and benchmarks are valid across economies. The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.