Justice delays hamper economic growth
Laws exist but are not enforced – or at least not implemented efficiently and quickly. That is a prevailing perception in Greece for many aspects of daily life, but also a dominant perception in the business world, and is confirmed by the World Bank’s Business Ready (B-Ready) 2024 report.
This is a report that replaces the Doing Business report produced by the World Bank until 2020 but halted after the disclosure of falsification of the data in favor of China.
According to the report, which this year examines the conditions of business in 50 economies, including Greece, this country has a high performance in terms of the completeness of the required institutional framework, as it ranks eighth with a score of 75.6 out of 100, but it scores just above the baseline at 58.98 for so-called operational efficiency. The report also reveals the following paradox: Greece ranks first among the 50 in terms of the process of setting up a business, with a score of almost “excellent,” but is below par in corporate bankruptcy.
It is by no means a coincidence that among the 10 criteria – subjects examined by the World Bank in the context of the B-Ready report – Greece scores the lowest where the institution of justice is involved – an institution that is admittedly too slow – as well as where there is the involvement of many services, especially urban planning, such as the siting of a business.
Greece’s worst performance is in corporate bankruptcy, ranking 34th out of 50 countries and scoring below the baseline, 43.71. This low score is mainly due to the implementation of the bankruptcy process (Greece’s score was 24.25, putting it in 42nd place) and to the time required to liquidate assets. Singapore has the highest performance in terms of the overall business bankruptcy process (89.69 points).
The second lowest performance of Greece, 56.02 points, is in taxation. Greece receives a low score mainly in the taxation of business profits and social security contributions (1.25 and 6 respectively out of 25). In terms of taxation, Greece is ranked 25th among the 50 countries, with New Zealand in first place with 71.74 points.
Greece’s third-lowest performance, 57.86 points, was for the location of a business, where the country ranked 32nd.
