East African Business Week

ARUSHA, TANZANIA - Ugandan business people should be on the look out for more investment opportunities in Southern Sudan since the country has made strides to improve the business environment for small and medium enterprises.
Close to $260m (aboutUsh508b) worth of goods was traded between Uganda and southern Sudan last year, according to Uganda's state minister for trade Nelson Gaggawala Wambuzi, who indicated the volume had tripled. In 2006, goods worth over $60m were traded between the two countries.
The figures were reached when the Southern Sudan and Uganda trade was not formalized as the country was just recovering from times of war.
A new report from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank released last week found that the Government of Southern Sudan is making strides to improve the business environment for small and medium enterprises.
The report on the theme, "Doing Business in Juba 2011", is the first assessment of business regulations in Southern Sudan's capital.  
It helps fill the data gap in the semi-autonomous region, which is expected to become Africa's newest nation in July.  
The report cites improvements in eight laws on business registration, operations, and land ownership that have been enacted since the 2005 peace agreement.
More than 9,000 businesses have signed up with the government's business registry since it started in 2006 while commercial banks have been established and basic infrastructure is being rehabilitated.
"Starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and registering property are relatively fast in Juba," according to the report.
"At 15 days, the startup time for a business in Juba is comparable to the average 13.8 days in developed economies of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development," says the report.
However, the cost of starting a business is as much as 250 percent of per-capita income which more than twice the average cost in Sub-Saharan Africa.
 "Reforms that cut red tape, clarify property rights, and streamline regulatory compliance can yield big payoffs," said Mierta Capaul, Lead Private Sector Development Specialist of the World Bank Group.
"There is an opportunity for Southern Sudan to build the strong foundation necessary for a vibrant formal private sector," noted the World Bank specialist in the report that also identifies key areas for improvement.
It says that Juba's three different legal frameworks cause uncertainty and poor infrastructure and the complexity of administrative processes hamper trade.  
"Access to credit is very limited and the lack of a collateral registry prevents entrepreneurs from using their assets as guarantees for loans," warned the report.
 The report examines business regulations from the perspective of small and medium enterprises.  It benchmarked nine regulatory areas in starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.
The study was conducted in partnership with the Ministry of Investment at the Government of Southern Sudan and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).