Increasing Agricultural Productivity:
Encouraging Foreign Direct Investments in the COMCEC Region
59
Table 22: COMCEC Member State Rankings in 2013 World Bank Doing Business Indicators
Lowest Tier
Country/Rank
Middle Tier
Country/Rank
Upper Tier
Country/Rank
Indonesia 128 Azerbaijan 67 Malaysia 12
Nigeria 131 Kyrgyzstan 70 Saudi Arabia 22
Bangladesh 132 Turkey 71 UAE 26
Palestine 135 Brunei 79 Qatar 40
Sierra Leone 140 Kuwait 82 Bahrain 42
Tajikistan 141 Albania 85 Kazakhstan 49
Sudan 143 Maldives 95 Oman 50
Syria 144 Morocco 97 Tunisia 50
Iran 145 Jordan 106
Mozambique 146 Pakistan 107
Gambia 147 Egypt 109
Mali 151 Guyana 113
Algeria 152 Lebanon 115
Burkina Faso 153 Yemen 118
Uzbekistan 154 Uganda 120
Togo 156
Comoros 158 *Somalia: not ranked
Cameroon 162 * Libya: not ranked
Suriname 165 * Turkmenistan: not ranked
Senegal 166
Mauritania 167
Afghanistan 168
Gabon 170
Djibouti 171
Iraq 171
Benin 175
Niger 176
Côte d’Ivoire 177
Guinea 178
Guinea-
Bissau
179
Chad 184
Source: World Bank Doing Business 2013
As Table 22 shows, more than half of the COMCEC Member Countries are in the bottom tier of
the World Bank Doing Business rankings. While these are certainly not a perfect indicator, they
are a reasonable proxy for problems with the business environment for attracting FDI in
agriculture, as in any other sector. Bureaucratic procedures and delays, together with policy
uncertainty and administrative inconsistency, make it difficult for investors to undertake their
investments in an effective and efficient way. Though no country is immune to corruption,
uncertainty and inconsistency often provide additional opportunities for officials to exact bribes.
There is a fairly close, if not perfect, correlation between a country’s score in the Doing Business
rankings and its score in the Transparency international Corruption Perception index.