World Bank issued its annual Doing Business report for 2019 late last month and for the first, it has United Arab Emirates in top 20 ranked economies, which makes UAE the first country to break into the top twenty.
UAE jumped ten places to get to the eleventh spot with a total score 81.28. Morocco and Tunisia have also shown significant improvements and are among the top five in MENA. Egypt and Algeria, even though still have low total scores, have also shown decent improvement by improving them.
Oman and Lebanon have seen the biggest drop in their rankings in MENA.
The report notes, “Economies of the Middle East and North Africa significantly accelerated the pace of reforms in the past year, with 43 reforms, compared to 29 the previous year. This year, the region hosts an economy in the global top 20 grouping, with the United Arab Emirates’ maiden entry in 11th place. However, the region continues to lag on gender-related issues, with barriers for women entrepreneurs in place in 14 economies.”
Here’s a quick chart, with the details.
You can read the full report here (PDF).
