Ease of Doing Business 2020 Index

In response to the Ease of Doing Business 2020 index that was published this morning, Daphna Aviram-Nitzan, director of the Center for Governance and Economics at the Israel Democracy Institute, who leads the regulation reduction project at the Institute, commented on Israel moving up 14 slots to the 35th place after 5 points improvement last year.

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For many years, the business environment in Israel is suffering from a burdensome and cumbersome bureaucracy, which negatively affects the willingness of foreign and local businesspeople to invest in Israel, establish factories and in general, conduct business in the country. This existing environment is a significant barrier to economic growth and impairs labor productivity.

This improvement is the result of ongoing efforts by a number of government agencies over the years that focused on improving the business environment and reducing regulations facing the business sector. Among others, this includes the work done by the committee tasked with improving Israel's standing in this index led by the Accountant General at the Ministry of finance. It also included efforts by the Prime Minister Office, which established a new unit for reducing the regulatory burden and approved some important government decisions: to reduce the regulatory burden by 25%, a demand for a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) in any new proposed government bill, the integration of deregulation experts in each government ministries, the reform in business licensing and the ongoing efforts by the Ministry of Economy to improve business environment. Together, these efforts led to the remarkable improvement in our standing in this important World Bank's." 

"Now is the time to continue with this momentum and improve our position even more," Aviram Nitzan added. "To achieve this goal, a digital one-stop-shop format must be set up to manage and reduce government bureaucracy. Such an entity would relieve business sector of the cumbersome processes, slow response times, lack of coordination with government agencies and conflicting regulatory requirements that they often face."

The Israel Democracy Institute has been promoting processes that help reduce bureaucratic burdens and promote digital one stop shop, including the use of ‘declarations’, improving coordination between government and business sectors, and removing barriers to doing business while strengthening ties with international bodies that rate the Israeli economy.