(2014) Pwofil Ekonomik: Ayiti Doing Business 2014

SoEconomy Economy Profile: St. Haiti Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized 2 Haiti Doing Business 2014 © 2013 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 15 14 13 12 A copublication of The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. Note that The World Bank does not necessarily own each component of the content included in the work. The World Bank therefore does not warrant that the use of the content contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. 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Additional copies of all 11 editions of Doing Business may be purchased at www.doingbusiness.org. Cover design: The Word Express 3 Haiti Doing Business 2014 CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4 The business environment .......................................................................................................... 5 Starting a business ..................................................................................................................... 14 Dealing with construction permits ........................................................................................... 23 Getting electricity ....................................................................................................................... 32 Registering property .................................................................................................................. 39 Getting credit .............................................................................................................................. 48 Protecting investors ................................................................................................................... 55 Paying taxes ................................................................................................................................ 64 Trading across borders .............................................................................................................. 71 Enforcing contracts .................................................................................................................... 79 Resolving insolvency .................................................................................................................. 88 Employing workers .................................................................................................................... 91 Data notes ................................................................................................................................... 98 Resources on the Doing Business website ............................................................................ 104 4 Haiti Doing Business 2014 INTRODUCTION Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The data set covers 47 economies in Sub- Saharan Africa, 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 25 in East Asia and the Pacific, 25 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa and 8 in South Asia, as well as 31 OECD high- income economies. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Haiti. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected econ omies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2013 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2012). The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other areas important to business—such as an economy’s proximity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other than those related to trading across borders and getting electricity), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions—are not directly studied by Doing Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of business, generally a local limited liability company operating in the largest business city. Because standard assumptions are used in the data collection, comparisons and benchmarks are valid across economies. The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform. More information is available in the full report. Doing Business 2014 presents the indicators, analyzes their relationship with economic outcomes and presents business regulatory reforms. The data, along with information on ordering Doing Business 2014, are available on the Doing Business website at http://www.doingbusiness.org. 5 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers trying to improve their economy’s regulatory environment for business, a good place to start is to find out how it compares with the regulatory environment in other economies. Doing Business provides an aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business based on indicator sets that measure and benchmark regulations applying to domestic small to medium-size businesses through their life cycle. Economies are ranked from 1 to 189 by the ease of doing business index. For each economy the index is calculated as the ranking on the simple average of its percentile rankings on each of the 10 topics included in the index in Doing Business 2014: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. The ranking on each topic is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators (see the data notes for more details). The employing workers indicators are not included in this year’s aggregate ease of doing business ranking, but the data are presented in this year’s economy profile. The aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business benchmarks each economy’s performance on the indicators against that of all other economies in the Doing Business sample (figure 1.1). While this ranking tells much about the business environment in an economy, it does not tell the whole story. The ranking on the ease of doing business, and the underlying indicators, do not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors or that affect the competitiveness of the economy. Still, a high ranking does mean that the government has created a regulatory environment conducive to operating a business. ECONOMY OVERVIEW Region: Latin America & Caribbean Income category: Low income Population: 10,173,775 GNI per capita (US$): 760 DB2014 rank: 177 DB2013 rank: 177* Change in rank: 0 DB 2014 DTF: 43.21 DB 2013 DTF: 42.57 Change in DTF: 0.61 * DB2013 ranking shown is not last year’s published ranking but a comparable ranking for DB2013 that captures the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. See the data notes for sources and definitions. 6 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.1 Where economies stand in the global ranking on the ease of doing business Source: Doing Business database. 7 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers, knowing where their economy stands in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business is useful. Also useful is to know how it ranks relative to comparator economies and relative to the regional average (figure 1.2). The economy’s rankings on the topics included in the ease of doing business index provide another perspective (figure 1.3). Figure 1.2 How Haiti and comparator economies rank on the ease of doing business Source: Doing Business database. 8 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.3 How Haiti ranks on Doing Business topics Source: Doing Business database. 9 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Just as the overall ranking on the ease of doing business tells only part of the story, so do changes in that ranking. Yearly movements in rankings can provide some indication of changes in an economy’s regulatory environment for firms, but they are always relative. Moreover, year-to-year changes in the overall rankings do not reflect how the business regulatory environment in an economy has changed over time—or how it has changed in different areas. To aid in assessing such changes, Doing Business introduced the distance to frontier measure. This measure shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005, except for the getting electricity indicators, which were introduced in 2009. Comparing the measure for an economy at 2 points in time allows users to assess how much the economy’s regulatory environment as measured by Doing Business has changed over time—how far it has moved toward (or away from) the most efficient practices and strongest regulations in areas covered by Doing Business (figure 1.4). Figure 1.4 How far has Haiti come in the areas measured by Doing Business? Note: The distance to frontier measure shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005, except for the getting electricity indicators, which were introduced in 2009. The measure is normalized to range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the best performance (the frontier). The overall distance to frontier is the average of the distance to frontier in the first 9 indicator sets shown in the figure and does not include getting electricity. Data on the overall distance to frontier including getting electricity is available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/distance-to-frontier. See the data notes for more details on the distance to frontier measure. Source: Doing Business database. 10 Haiti Doing Business 2014 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The absolute values of the indicators tell another part of the story (table 1.1). The indicators, on their own or in comparison with the indicators of a good practice economy or those of comparator economies in the region, may reveal bottlenecks reflected in large numbers of procedures, long delays or high costs. Or they may reveal unexpected strengths in an area of business regulation—such as a regulatory process that can be completed with a small number of procedures in a few days and at a low cost. Comparison of the economy’s indicators today with those in the previous year may show where substantial bottlenecks persist— and where they are diminishing. Table 1.1 Summary of Doing Business indicators for Haiti Indicator Haiti DB2014 Haiti DB2013 Dominican Republic DB2014 Guyana DB201 4 Jamaica DB2014 Mexico DB2014 Puerto Rico (U.S.) DB2014 Suriname DB2014 Best performer globally DB2014 Starting a Business (rank) 187 187 144 94 23 48 18 181 New Zealand (1) Procedures (number) 12 12 7 8 5 6 6 13 New Zealand (1)* Time (days) 97.0 105.0 18.5 20.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 208.0 New Zealand (0.5) Cost (% of income per capita) 264.8 286.6 17.3 12.4 6.4 19.7 0.9 107.7 Slovenia (0.0) Paid-in Min. Capital (% of income per capita) 19.1 21.0 46.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 112 Economies (0.0)* Dealing with Construction Permits (rank) 141 137 121 33 52 40 172 49 Hong Kong SAR, China (1) Procedures (number) 9 9 14 8 8 11 18 11 Hong Kong SAR, China (6) Time (days) 1,129.0 1,129.0 216.0 195.0 135.0 82.0 189.0 239.0 Singapore (26.0) 11 Haiti Doing Business 2014 Indicator Haiti DB2014 Haiti DB2013 Dominican Republic DB2014 Guyana DB201 4 Jamaica DB2014 Mexico DB2014 Puerto Rico (U.S.) DB2014 Suriname DB2014 Best performer globally DB2014 Cost (% of income per capita) 627.1 692.0 67.9 16.4 207.1 353.1 354.4 10.7 Qatar (1.1) Getting Electricity (rank) 67 71 127 155 132 133 38 40 Iceland (1) Procedures (number) 4 4 7 8 6 7 5 4 10 Economies (3)* Time (days) 60 60 82 109 96 85 32 58 Germany (17) Cost (% of income per capita) 3,800.1 4,647.5 301.0 479.5 540.6 369.1 376.7 530.9 Japan (0.0) Registering Property (rank) 138 138 115 111 114 150 131 173 Georgia (1) Procedures (number) 5 5 7 6 6 7 8 6 4 Economies (1)* Time (days) 312.0 312.0 60.0 75.0 36.0 74.0 193.5 107.0 New Zealand (1.0)* Cost (% of property value) 7.2 7.3 3.7 4.6 9.5 5.3 0.9 13.7 5 Economies (0.0)* Getting Credit (rank) 165 162 86 170 109 42 13 170 Malaysia (1)* Strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 3 3 4 8 6 9 4 10 Economies (10)* Depth of credit information index (0-6) 2 2 6 0 0 6 5 0 31 Economies (6)* Public registry coverage (% of adults) 1.1 0.7 59.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Portugal (100.0)* Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 59.8 0.0 0.0 100.0 100.0 0.0 22 Economies (100.0)* Protecting Investors (rank) 170 169 98 80 80 68 16 186 New Zealand (1) Extent of disclosure 2 2 5 5 4 8 7 1 10 Economies (10)* 12 Haiti Doing Business 2014 Indicator Haiti DB2014 Haiti DB2013 Dominican Republic DB2014 Guyana DB201 4 Jamaica DB2014 Mexico DB2014 Puerto Rico (U.S.) DB2014 Suriname DB2014 Best performer globally DB2014 index (0-10) Extent of director liability index (0-10) 3 3 4 5 8 5 6 0 Cambodia (10) Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 4 4 6 6 4 4 8 5 3 Economies (10)* Strength of investor protection index (0-10) 3.0 3.0 5.0 5.3 5.3 5.7 7.0 2.0 New Zealand (9.7) Paying Taxes (rank) 132 128 106 110 168 118 110 50 United Arab Emirates (1) Payments (number per year) 47 47 9 35 36 6 16 29 Hong Kong SAR, China (3)* Time (hours per year) 184 184 324 256 368 334 218 199 United Arab Emirates (12) Trading Across Borders (rank) 151 151 33 71 118 59 87 105 Singapore (1) Documents to export (number) 8 8 5 6 6 4 5 8 Ireland (2)* Time to export (days) 33 33 8 19 20 11 15 22 5 Economies (6)* Cost to export (US$ per container) 1,200 1,185 1,040 730 1,530 1,450 1,300 1,000 Malaysia (450) Documents to import (number) 10 10 6 7 7 4 8 6 Ireland (2)* Time to import (days) 31 31 10 22 17 11 15 19 Singapore (4) Cost to import (US$ per container) 1,555 1,545 1,145 720 2,130 1,740 1,350 1,165 Singapore (440) Enforcing Contracts (rank) 96 95 81 73 131 71 101 184 Luxembourg (1) 13 Haiti Doing Business 2014 Indicator Haiti DB2014 Haiti DB2013 Dominican Republic DB2014 Guyana DB201 4 Jamaica DB2014 Mexico DB2014 Puerto Rico (U.S.) DB2014 Suriname DB2014 Best performer globally DB2014 Time (days) 530 530 460 581 655 400 620 1,715 Singapore (150) Cost (% of claim) 42.6 42.6 40.9 25.2 45.6 31.0 25.6 37.1 Bhutan (0.1) Procedures (number) 35 35 34 36 35 38 39 44 Singapore (21)* Resolving Insolvency (rank) 189 189 159 141 31 26 21 160 Japan (1) Time (years) no practice no practice 3.5 3.0 1.1 1.8 2.5 5.0 Ireland (0.4) Cost (% of estate) no practice no practice 38 29 18 18 8 30 Norway (1) Outcome (0 as piecemeal sale and 1 as going concern) no practice no practice 0 0 1 1 1 0 Recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0.0 0.0 8.8 18.0 64.2 67.6 73.4 8.6 Japan (92.8) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see the data notes. * Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. A number shown in place of an economy’s name indicates the number of economies that share the top ranking on the indicator. For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). Source: Doing Business database. 14 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS Formal registration of companies has many immediate benefits for the companies and for business owners and employees. Legal entities can outlive their founders. Resources are pooled as several shareholders join forces to start a company. Formally registered companies have access to services and institutions from courts to banks as well as to new markets. And their employees can benefit from protections provided by the law. An additional benefit comes with limited liability companies. These limit the financial liability of company owners to their investments, so personal assets of the owners are not put at risk. Where governments make registration easy, more entrepreneurs start businesses in the formal sector, creating more good jobs and generating more revenue for the government. What do the indicators cover? Doing Business measures the ease of starting a business in an economy by recording all procedures officially required or commonly done in practice by an entrepreneur to start up and formally operate an industrial or commercial business—as well as the time and cost required to complete these procedures. It also records the paid-in minimum capital that companies must deposit before registration (or within 3 months). The ranking on the ease of starting a business is the simple average of the percentile rankings on the 4 component indicators: procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital requirement. To make the data comparable across economies, Doing Business uses several assumptions about the business and the procedures. It assumes that all information is readily available to the entrepreneur and that there has been no prior contact with officials. It also assumes that the entrepreneur will pay no bribes. And it assumes that the business:  Is a limited liability company, located in the largest business city and is 100% domestically owned.  Has between 10 and 50 employees.  Conducts general commercial or industrial activities. WHAT THE STARTING A BUSINESS INDICATORS MEASURE Procedures to legally start and operate a company (number) Preregistration (for example, name verification or reservation, notarization) Registration in the economy’s largest business city Postregistration (for example, social security registration, company seal) Time required to complete each procedure (calendar days) Does not include time spent gathering information Each procedure starts on a separate day (2 procedures cannot start on the same day). Procedures that can be fully completed online are an exception to this rule. Procedure completed once final document is received No prior contact with officials Cost required to complete each procedure (% of income per capita) Official costs only, no bribes No professional fees unless services required by law Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita) Deposited in a bank or with a notary before registration (or within 3 months)  Has a start-up capital of 10 times income per capita.  Has a turnover of at least 100 times income per capita.  Does not qualify for any special benefits.  Does not own real estate. 15 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to start a business in Haiti? According to data collected by Doing Business, starting a business there requires 12 procedures, takes 97.0 days, costs 264.8% of income per capita and requires paid-in minimum capital of 19.1% of income per capita (figure 2.1). Figure 2.1 What it takes to start a business in Haiti Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita): 19.1 Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the starting a business indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. 16 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS Globally, Haiti stands at 187 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of starting a business (figure 2.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in Haiti to start a business. Figure 2.2 How Haiti and comparator economies rank on the ease of starting a business Source: Doing Business database. 17 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over time have had the best performance regionally or globally on the procedures, time, cost or paid-in minimum capital required to start a business (figure 2.3) can help show what is possible in making it easier to start a business. And changes in regional averages can show where Haiti is keeping up—and where it is falling behind. Figure 2.3 Has starting a business become easier over time? Procedures (number) Time (days) 18 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS Cost (% of income per capita) Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita) Note: Ninety economies globally have no paid-in minimum capital requirement. DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. 19 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS Economies around the world have taken steps making it easier to start a business—streamlining procedures by setting up a one-stop shop, making procedures simpler or faster by introducing technology and reducing or eliminating minimum capital requirements. Many have undertaken business registration reforms in stages—and they often are part of a larger regulatory reform program. Among the benefits have been greater firm satisfaction and savings and more registered businesses, financial resources and job opportunities. What business registration reforms has Doing Business recorded in Haiti (table 2.1)? Table 2.1 How has Haiti made starting a business easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 Haiti eased business start-up by eliminating the review by the president’s or the prime minister’s office of the incorporation act submitted for publication. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. 20 Haiti Doing Business 2014 STARTING A BUSINESS What are the details? Underlying the indicators shown in this chapter for Haiti is a set of specific procedures—the bureaucratic and legal steps that an entrepreneur must complete to incorporate and register a new firm. These are identified by Doing Business through collaboration with relevant local professionals and the study of laws, regulations and publicly available information on business entry in that economy. Following is a detailed summary of those procedures, along with the associated time and cost. These procedures are those that apply to a company matching the standard assumptions (the “standardized company”) used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators measure). STANDARDIZED COMPANY City: Port au Prince Legal Form: Société Anonyme Paid in Minimum Capital Requirement: HTG 6,250 Start-up Capital: 10 times GNI per capita Summary of procedures for starting a business in Haiti—and the time and cost No. Procedure Time to complete Cost to complete 1 Prepare of company statutes with a lawyer (Articles and Memorandum of Association) The lawyer charges approximately HTG 30,000 for the drafting of the company statutes in the case of a Société Anonyme. Prices can vary depending on the notary. 10 days HTG 25,000 - 35,000 2 Notarize the company deeds and articles of association The notary public must handwrite and notarize the documents at a fee of between 15,000 and 25,000 depending on the complexity of the service. 7 days HTG 15,000 - 25,000 notary fees 3 Deposit the legally required initial capital in the National Bank and obtain deposit evidence The notary deposits the legally required initial capital in the National Bank (Banque Nationale de Credit) and obtains proof of deposit. A certified check need to be used to pay in the National Bank, where proof of payment is provided. 1 day no charge 4 Register the statutes with the Direction Générale des Impôts (DGI) The notary pays the registration fees at the Tax Office (DGI) and proof of payment is obtained. 1 day included in the notary fees [... middle sections omitted for long document ...] 101 Haiti Doing Business 2014 used by Doing Business. 4 Thus, Doing Business uses the simplest method: weighting all topics equally and, within each topic, giving equal weight to each of the topic components. If an economy has no laws or regulations covering a specific area—for example, insolvency—it receives a “no practice” mark. Similarly, an economy receives a “no practice” or “not possible” mark if regulation exists but is never used in practice or if a competing regulation prohibits such practice. Either way, a “no practice” mark puts the economy at the bottom of the ranking on the relevant indicator. The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. It does not account for an economy’s proximity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other than services related to trading across borders and getting electricity), the strength of its financial system, the security of property from theft and looting, macroeconomic conditions or the strength of underlying institutions. Variability of economies’ rankings across topics Each indicator set measures a different aspect of the business regulatory environment. The rankings of an economy can vary, sometimes significantly, across indicator sets. The average correlation coefficient between the 10 indicator sets included in the aggregate ranking is 0.38, and the coefficients between any 2 sets of indicators range from 0.18 (between getting electricity and getting credit) to 0.58 (between trading across borders and resolving insolvency and between trading across borders and getting electricity). These correlations suggest that economies rarely score universally well or universally badly on the indicators. Consider the example of Canada. It stands at 19 in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business. Its ranking is 2 on starting a business, 4 on protecting investors, and 8 on paying taxes. But its ranking is only 4 See Simeon Djankov, Darshini Manraj, Caralee McLiesh and Rita Ramalho, “Doing Business Indicators: Why Aggregate, and How to Do It” (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005). Principal components and unobserved components methods yield a ranking nearly identical to that from the simple average method because both these methods assign roughly equal weights to the topics, since the pairwise correlations among indicators do not differ much. An alternative to the simple average method is to give different weights to the topics, depending on which are considered of more or less importance in the context of a specific economy. 58 on enforcing contracts, 116 on dealing with construction permits and 145 on getting electricity. Variation in performance across the indicator sets is not at all unusual. It reflects differences in the degree of priority that government authorities give to particular areas of business regulation reform and the ability of different government agencies to deliver tangible results in their area of responsibility. Distance to frontier measure A drawback of the ease of doing business ranking is that it can measure the regulatory performance of economies only relative to the performance of others. It does not provide information on how the absolute quality of the regulatory environment is improving over time. Nor does it provide information on how large the gaps are between economies at a single point in time. The distance to frontier measure is designed to address both shortcomings, complementing the ease of doing business ranking. This measure illustrates the distance of an economy to the “frontier,” and the change in the measure over time shows the extent to which the economy has closed this gap. The frontier is a score derived from the most efficient practice or highest score achieved on each of the component indicators in 10 Doing Business indicator sets (excluding the employing workers indicators) by any economy. In starting a business, for example, Canada and New Zealand have achieved the highest performance on the number of procedures required (1) and on the time (0.5 days), Denmark and Slovenia on the cost (0% of income per capita) and Chile, Zambia and 99 other economies on the paid-in minimum capital requirement (0% of income per capita) (table 22.2). Calculating the distance to frontier for each economy involves 2 main steps. First, individual indicator scores are normalized to a common unit: except for the total tax rate, each of the 31 component indicators y is rescaled to (max − y)/(max − min), with the minimum value (min) representing the frontier—the highest performance on that indicator across all economies since 2003 or the first year the indicator was collected. 5 For the total tax rate, consistent with the calculation of 5 Even though scores for the distance to frontier are calculated from 2005, data from as early as 2003 are used to define the frontier 102 Haiti Doing Business 2014 the rankings, the frontier is defined as the total tax rate at the 15th percentile of the overall distribution of total tax rates for all years. Second, for each economy the scores obtained for individual indicators are aggregated through simple averaging into one distance to frontier score, first for each topic and then across all topics. An economy’s distance to frontier is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest performance and 100 the frontier. The maximum (max) and minimum (min) observed values are computed for all economies included in the Doing Business sample since 2003 and for all years (from 2003 to 2013). To mitigate the effects of extreme outliers in the distributions of the rescaled data (very few economies need 694 days to complete the procedures to start a business, but many need 9 days), the maximum (max) is defined as the 95 th percentile of the pooled data for all economies and all years for each indicator. The exceptions are the getting credit, protecting investors and resolving insolvency indicators, whose construction precludes outliers. In addition, the cost to export and cost to import for each year are divided by the GDP deflator, so as to take the general price level into account when benchmarking these absolute-cost indicators across economies with different inflation trends. The base year for the deflator is 2013 for all economies. The difference between an economy’s distance to frontier score in any previous year and its score in 2013 illustrates the extent to which the economy has closed the gap to the frontier over time. And in any given year the score measures how far an economy is from the highest performance at that time. Take Colombia, which has a score of 70.5 on the distance to frontier measure for 2014. This score indicates that the economy is 29.5 percentage points away from the frontier constructed from the best performances across all economies and all years. Colombia was further from the frontier in 2009, with a score of 66.2. The difference between the scores shows an improvement over time. The distance to frontier measure can also be used for comparisons across economies in the same year, complementing the ease of doing business ranking. For example, Colombia stands at 63 this year in the ease of doing business ranking, while Peru, which is 29.3 percentage points from the frontier, stands at 42. Economies that improved the most across 3 or more Doing Business topics in 2012/13 Doing Business 2014 uses a simple method to calculate which economies improved the most in the ease of doing business. First, it selects the economies that in 2012/13 implemented regulatory reforms making it easier to do business in 3 or more of the 10 topics included in this year’s ease of doing business ranking. 6 Twenty-nine economies meet this criterion: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Djibouti, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Panama, the Philippines, the Republic of Congo, Romania, the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates. Second, Doing Business sorts these economies on the increase in their distance to frontier measure from the previous year using comparable data. Selecting the economies that implemented regulatory reforms in at least 3 topics and improved the most in the distance to frontier measure is intended to highlight economies with ongoing, broadbased reform programs. The criterion for identifying the top improvers was changed from last year. The improvement in ease of doing business ranking is no longer used. The improvement in the distance to frontier measure is used instead because under this measure economies are sorted according to their abs- olute improvement instead of relative improvement. 6 Doing Business reforms making it more difficult to do business are subtracted from the total number of those making it easier to do business. 104 Haiti Doing Business 2014 RESOURCES ON THE DOING BUSINESS WEBSITE Current features News on the Doing Business project http://www.doingbusiness.org Rankings How economies rank—from 1 to 189 http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings/ Data All the data for 189 economies—topic rankings, indicator values, lists of regulatory procedures and details underlying indicators http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ Reports Access to Doing Business reports as well as subnational and regional reports, reform case studies and customized economy and regional profiles http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports/ Methodology The methodologies and research papers underlying Doing Business http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/ Research Abstracts of papers on Doing Business topics and related policy issues http://www.doingbusiness.org/research/ Doing Business reforms Short summaries of DB2014 business regulation reforms, lists of reforms since DB2008 and a ranking simulation tool http://www.doingbusiness.org/reforms/ Historical data Customized data sets since DB2004 http://www.doingbusiness.org/custom-query/ Law library Online collection of business laws and regulations relating to business and gender issues http://www.doingbusiness.org/law-library/ http://wbl.worldbank.org/ Contributors More than 10,200 specialists in 189 economies who participate in Doing Business http://www.doingbusiness.org/contributors/doing- business/ Entrepreneurship data Data on business density for 139 economies http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/e ntrepreneurship Doing Business iPhone App Doing Business at a Glance App presents the full report, rankings and highlights http://www.doingbusiness.org/specialfeatures/ iphone 105 Haiti Doing Business 2014