This is just so wrong: what do the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Congo, Chad and the Central African Republic have in common? All African countries best to avoid? Good guess but not the answer. What about Gabon, Benin, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau? Same! In fact most of them are neighbours in West Africa. Not Eritrea though, that's East Africa. OK, let's add a neighbour for that to the list too: Djibouti. Still no idea? Add Angola and Zimbabwe. Come on, it has to be something to do with Africa, right? No, add Haiti. Well I'll tell you:
all 15 of the above mentioned countries are in the bottom 16 of the 10th edition of the
World Bank's annual report
Doing Business (a publication that now covers 11 indicator sets and 185 economies [
full report] (PDF). The common factor of the five countries I first mentioned are
the only ones that were below Venezuela. OK, the image gave it away! But VENEZUELA (!!) the country with the world's largest estimated oil reserves, so great in fact that they are nearly 25% of OPEC's entire world crude oil reserves (
yes, really!).
The Doing Business report "
analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 185 economies. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors."
Attribution: World Bank. 2013. Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-9615-5.
