Mountaga Sy, APIX Chief Executive Officer
“SENEGAL WANTS TO JOIN THE TOP 100 IN THE WORLD BANK ‘DOING BUSINESS’ CLASSIFICATION” Senegal has been improving its business conditions over the last six years. The “Doing Business” report recognizes this progress regularly. Mountaga Sy, APIX Chief Executive Officer talks about the reform measures that have been implemented and others that will allow Senegal to keep going. Senegal has improved its ranking again in the World Bank “Doing Business“ classification.
What reform measures are highlighted in the 2020 “Doing Business“ classification?
Yes, indeed, Senegal’s ranking in the World Bank Doing Business classification, published last October, rose 18 points propelling Senegal to the 123rd position out of 190 countries. This figure is evidence of the government’s commitment to improving its business strategy, which fits in completely with the priorities in the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE) and Priority Action Plans (PAPs). The ‘Doing Business’ classification is based on ten specific criteria and reflects our government’s determination to become more competitive and allow the private sector to play a leading role in driving the economy. This determination has led to a series of unprecedented structural reforms in the energy, telecom and even digital economy sectors.
Let me give you three good examples. In the latest classification attention is given to the provisions we made for facilitating access to credit by using large billers, (utilities companies and large retail stories) in the Credit Information Bureau (BIC) which is responsible for collecting data on a borrower’s credit and payment history from financial institutions, public bodies and major utilities companies (electricity, water, mobile telephones). The decrease in registration costs from 25.000 to 10.,000 CFA francs was also taken into account for the limited liability companies (SARL) with less than 100 million CFA francs in capital. We also made access to e-tax for small and medium companies easier. This classification improvement is in line with the continuous improvement in our score over
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