Namibia fifth best for business

The US–Africa Business Centre has ranked Namibia fifth following the recent publication of its first Investor Confidence Indicator.It is composed of 13 widely used indicators, such as the Global Competitiveness ranking, Ease of Doing Business, Corruption Index, Ibrahim Index of African Governance and GDP Per Capita.Southern African countries were well represented among the top 13 African countries. “Namibia performs well in the overall score ranking fifth in Africa and third in Southern Africa behind her neighbours Botswana and South Africa,” the report authored by the US–Africa Business Centre said.“Like Botswana, Namibia ranks in the first quartile for all the indicators, while South Africa performed equally well except for the Global Peace Index, where the country is ranked in the third quartile,” the report noted.Despite Namibia's favourable ranking in all these indicators, the economy has not benefited from domestic and foreign direct investment to the extent her ranking would suggest, according to the US–Africa Business monitor. “Foreign direct investment is to a large extent restricted to natural resource extraction. The lack of investment into sustainable industries also limits job creation and eventually the fight against poverty and income inequality.”Policymakers have been advised to improve the ease of doing business though. “It is therefore important that Namibia continues with initiatives such as improving the business environment through the creation of the one-stop portal NamBizOne, but also designs and implements forward-looking, innovative policies that encourages and supports investment and job creation in order to reap more benefits from the favourable rankings,” the report said.Namibia was given a score of 58.82/100 for ease doing business by the World Bank and scored 4.02/7 in terms of competitiveness by the World Economic Forum while it rated fairly high on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, achieving a score of 69.8/100, all based on 2016 data.STAFF REPORTER

Namibia fifth best for business

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-24

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Namibia fifth best for business

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-24

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