The World Economic Forum (WEF) has recently published a detailed report named ‘Regional Risks for Doing Business Report 2018’, which has listed looming risks to the eight regions of the world with Islamic Republic of Pakistan being placed in South Asia Region along Bangladesh; India; Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The major Risk No.1 in the report identified for Pakistan is “Water Crises”, while Risk No.2 for Pakistan being: “Unmanageable inflation”, Risk No.3: “Terrorist attacks”, Risk No.4: “Failure of urban planning” and the sixth Risk No.6 being identified for Pakistan as “Failure of critical infrastructure”.
The report views cyber-attacks also a major concern by stating that “Political and economic concerns predominate among businesses in South Asia, with cyber-attacks also viewed as a concern”.
The report also highlights that “Rising energy prices and expansionary monetary and fiscal stances point to inflationary risks.”
“Failure of national governance” was ranked as the leading risk to doing business by WEF respondents in South Asia. This sentiment corresponds with a particularly busy political period in the region with General/National Elections held in July 2018 in Pakistan while in Nepal in November and December 2017 and another three are expected by the end of the year in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives. The election process is often viewed with anxiety in South Asia as it can be accompanied by violence, blockades and other forms of political tensions.
The findings presented in this report are based on data from the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey. This is the survey that feeds into the Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report. Each year it canvasses the views of business leaders from around the world on the state of the business environment where they are based.
The Executive Opinion Survey was conducted in 2018 between January and June, and the survey’s risk-related question received 12,548 responses. The respondents were presented with WEF’s core list of 30 global risks displayed on the last page of the report and asked to select “the five global risks that responders believe to be of most concern for doing business in their country within the next ten years”. In a number of instances, the most recent survey data available are from 2017: this is the case for Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burundi, China, Ethiopia, Guinea and Lesotho.
The eight regions that WEF used are comprised as follows:
1 – Europe: Albania; Austria; Belgium; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Macedonia, FYR; Malta; Montenegro; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Serbia; Slovak Republic; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; United Kingdom.
2– Eurasia: Armenia; Azerbaijan; Georgia; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyz Republic; Moldova; Russian Federation; Tajikistan; Ukraine.
3 – Middle East and North Africa: Algeria; Bahrain; Egypt; Islamic Republic of Iran; Israel; Jordan; Kuwait; Lebanon; Morocco; Oman; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Tunisia; United Arab Emirates; Yemen.
4 – Sub-Saharan Africa: Angola; Benin; Botswana; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Cape Verde; Chad; Cote d’Ivoire; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Ethiopia; Eswatini; The Gambia; Ghana; Guinea; Kenya; Lesotho; Liberia; Malawi; Mali; Mauritania; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; South Africa; Tanzania; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe.
5 – North America: Canada; United States.
6 – Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; El Salvador; Guatemala; Haiti; Honduras; Jamaica; Mexico; Nicaragua; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Trinidad and Tobago; Uruguay; Venezuela.
7 – East Asia and the Pacific: Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Cambodia; China; Hong Kong SAR; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Lao PDR; Malaysia; Mongolia; New Zealand; Philippines; Singapore; Taiwan, China; Thailand; Viet Nam.
8 – South Asia: Bangladesh; India; Nepal; Pakistan; Sri Lanka.