Rwanda is ranked 46 out of 189 economies surveyed globally in the 2015 World Bank’s Doing Business rankings released today, moving up two positions.

The 2015 release is the 12th edition of a series of annual reports that investigate the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain.The Doing Business report focuses on ten areas main areas that affect business namely, the ease of starting a business, obtaining construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

According to the report, over the last year Rwanda registered improvements in three of the ten indicators measured, namely the ease of obtaining construction permits, getting electricity and getting credit.

Rwanda made obtaining construction permits easier with reforms that saw its previous rank of 93rd moving 59 steps up to obtain a new rank of 34th globally.

Rwanda also made getting electricity easy when it waived all fees for completing a new connection, including the security deposit and now ranks 62nd globally as the easiest place to getting electricity from 79th where it was ranked last year.

Regarding getting credit, the country is now ranked 4th from 10th last year.

Rwanda also provided one of the three country case studies alongside Chile and the United Kingdom to provide good examples of how corporate registries have improved efficiency and service quality over time.

"The choice of these countries is based on geographic diversity, adoption of good practices, and consistent pace of business registration reform and availability of data,” the Report notes.

World Bank Country Manager, Carolyn Turk, congratulated Rwanda for its improvement in the key areas.

"Progress made in important areas, including access to credit, securing construction and occupancy permits and in the affordability of electricity is a clear proof of the government’s commitment to providing an attractive environment for business,” she said.

Melissa Johns, Advisor, Global Indicators Group, Development Economics, World Bank Group also applauded Rwanda for its impressive performance noting that, "Rwanda has been an example for emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and worldwide”.

"The country has successfully implemented a strategy to improve the business environment for local entrepreneurs that has brought tangible results.”

At the press conference held this afternoon in Kigali, RDB CEO Francis Gatare said, "Rwanda has consistently implemented bold reforms to improve the ease of doing business and this has resulted in significant promotion from 150th globally in 2008 to 46th today.

"We have achieved this mainly through constant dialogue with the private sector to determine their perspective and needs.”

Gatare who was flanked by World Bank country manager on his left and Trade Minister Francois Kanimba on the right also noted that this year’s rankings were computed using a new methodology that altered Rwanda’s previous record.

For example in 2014, Rwanda had been ranked 32nd globally but after applying new methodology, Rwanda’s ranking last year is now quoted as 48th and in the new report, moved two points to be ranked 46th globally.