Anietie Udobit, Abuja
This is the second time Gombe state will clinch the first position among the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory in Ease of Doing Business, having emerged the overall best last year when PEBEC released the 2022 Ease of Doing Business report.
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The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) released the second edition of the Subnational Ease of Doing Business Report for 2023 with Gombe State leading.
PEBEC, in a statement announcing the report, said the new report featured six indicators – Infrastructure; Secure and Stable Environment; Transparency and Accessibility of Information; Regulatory Environment; Skills and Labour and Economic Opportunity.
Each State has been rated on a 10-point scale across the indicators, providing the basis for calculating the 2023 weighted EoDB score for each state.
According to the PEBEC report, Gombe scored 7.15 to emerge as the state providing the friendliest environment for business. It is being followed by Jigawa State which got a weighted score of 6.79 while Sokoto State with 6.88 score comes third.
A breakdown of the report by geopolitical zones shows that Plateau State (5.8) topped the states in North Central; with Gombe State (7.15) topping the states in North East; Jigawa State (6.88) topping North West; Anambra State (6.19) first among the states in the South East; Rivers State (5.76) on top of South South; and Ekiti State (5.79) on top of South West.
Since 2017, the PEBEC has been implementing reforms aimed at removing bureaucratic constraints to doing business and to make Nigeria a progressively easier place to do business.
It subsequently made a proposal to the National Economic Council to replicate the ease of doing business initiative at the subnational level, which was unanimously approved in July 2017.
Nigeria’s Subnational Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) Report was undertaken by the PEBEC to provide empirical information on the attractiveness of states’ business climates and to serve as a credible reference resource for businesses and investors.
The 2023 Subnational Ease of Doing Business Report builds on the inaugural Subnational EoDB Baseline Report released in March 2021 and improves it in several areas, including deepening of the methodology and enhancing the statistical significance of the survey.
It highlighted improvements made since the release of the last report in March 2021 and identifies the challenges that remain to be met, as well as the reforms that need to be implemented to make the business environment more conducive for businesses and investors.
The subnational survey methodology framework was developed by the Technical Working Group of PEBEC’s National Economic Council (NEC) comprising representatives from six states drawn from the six geopolitical zones, the NEC Secretariat, Nigerian Governors’ Forum, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, and other private sector representatives.