Rwanda among ten best countries to start a business

Business registration at RDB can be done in only 6 hours. (file photo)

The latest report by the World Bank on Doing Busi­ness has ranked Rwanda among the top ten countries in the world to start a business.
According to the report that ranks economies for ease of do­ing business, Rwanda is the only country on the African continent that has appeared in the top ten, where it is ranked eighth.
The report indicates that New Zealand is the easiest place to start a small and medium-sized enter­prise in the world, which is one of the ten indicators used by the WB to assess the business environ­ment in countries.
This is the second consecutive year that New Zealand has come first for that particular indicator in the ranking. After registering a company name online, entrepre­neurs can apply for tax-related ac­counts and incorporate the com­pany at the same time.
The rankings look at 185 econ­omies around the world. The top ten list includes New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Macedonia, Hong Kong, Georgia, Rwanda, Belarus and Ireland.
In assessing how easy it is to start a limited liability company, the report looks at how many steps are officially required or common­ly done by entrepreneurs, as well as how many days it takes to go through those procedures. The report also looks at cost and the minimum capital required, with zero percent of income per capita being best.
The report shows that in New Zealand, it takes only one step and one day, the ideal number, to incorporate a company. Someone who wants to open a business just has to apply for registration on­line. According to the report, the process costs 163.55 New Zealand dollars (US$ 129) and does not have a minimum capital require­ment.
By contrast, the U.S. ranks 13th, needing six steps in order to start a business with no minimum capital. The report based the U.S. statistics on requirements in New York City, as it used the largest business city of each country it studied.
Rwanda’s case
The report indicates that it is simple to start a business in Rwanda compared to other coun­tries in Africa, as it’s free of charge to register a company in Rwanda if done online and the certificate is issued in one to three days.
Statistics at the Rwanda Devel­opment Board (RDB) show that currently, registering a company takes an individual only six hours and a cost of Frw 15,000 for physi­cal registration, while it is free if done online.