Chief Executive Officer of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Dennis Chung reckons that the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report more accurately reflects the economic performance of the country as opposed to the Government’s much-touted Doing Business Report.

His arguments were based on the fact that the Global Competitiveness Report examines in detail the broad range of global issues it seeks to address with stakeholders as part of its mission to improve the state of the world.

Moreover, it is based on infrastructure that is already in place and what even the most vulnerable in society is feeling on the ground, while the Doing Business Report focuses more on infrastructure, legislations and policies passed by the Government, according to the CEO.

“The Global Competitiveness Report for me is actually more relevant to us as business people than the Doing Business Report. The politicians of course have been emphasising the Doing Business Report because there has been a movement of seven places,” Chung told the audience. He was speaking at the Raising Awareness – WEF Global Competitiveness Report: Jamaica’s relative performance over the years 2010-2015 at the Mona School of Business (MSBM) last Thursday.

The WEF has selected MSBM as its partner institution for administering the Global Competitiveness Survey to local corporations, businesses and institutions, commencing February 1. The report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide, thus resulting in a need for the cooperation of entities involved.

“When you look at Jamaica’s situation, we improved seven places over the 2015 to 2016 period in the Doing Business Report — but effectively because of the number of firms participating in the report over the period, we have slipped about one point in the Global Competitiveness Report,” he stated.

“This, I think, is very important because it shows what we have been talking about: that putting something in place is not enough, we have to have implementation and therefore what we have been doing at the PSOJ is to engage the various agencies.”

He referenced the Insolvency Act which was last year passed by the Government after a two-year drafting period by the PSOJ. The World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2013 concluded that resolving insolvencies in Jamaica took a little over one year on average and costs 18 per cent of the debtor’s estate.

“What we find is that the infrastructure for its implementation is not there. A proper office and administration has not been set up; for example, we don’t have a commercial court to deal with it so if someone has insolvency issues they can’t wait two or three months in a court. It has to be dealt with immediately and therefore while we are putting the legislation in place, we have to focus also on the implementation,” Chung stated.

In September, the WEF in its Global Competitiveness Index ranked access to financing, corruption, inefficient government bureaucracies, crime and theft, tax rates and poor work ethic in labour force as the top six issues affecting the country.

According to Chung, this accounts for 63 per cent of the problems Jamaica encounters.

“This is why the inefficient government bureaucracies come up as a prime problem, because while the politicians might be saying we have done this and we have improved seven places, but we are not feeling it on the ground,” he said.

“And this is why the SME sector also is not taking off, because implementation affects that SME sector more than any other sector and economies really don’t see sustainable growth unless the SME sector is moving. So implementation is the first thing and this is why we welcome the Global Competitiveness Peport because that speaks to what are the most problematic factors that people are facing.”