By Phumza Macanda
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Faster reforms to ease regulations hampering businesses in sub-Saharan Africa could see the region emulate Asia's economic boom and cut widespread poverty, the World Bank said on Friday.
Michael Klein, chief economist at the World Bank investment arm International Finance Corporation, said while Africa was languishing at the bottom in terms of development, there were signs that it was taking a turn for the better.
"There's a clear upward trend. Possibly (the region) can have a boom like the East Asian countries if the momentum of reforms can be sustained," he told Reuters in an interview.
"Africa has a long way to go and by going step-by-step it has a chance not only to maintain the level of economic growth, but to take it further."
Klein said the environment for, especially, small business in Africa was still considered "hostile", making it difficult for companies to operate efficiently.
But there were successes with Kenya and Ghana both breaking into the list of the world's top 10 reformers in the World Bank's recently-released "Doing Business 2008" report.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world's poorest region, hampered by conflict and civil war, although steady progress has been made in most countries, and economic growth is accelerating.
Growth in the region outpaced that of Latin America for the past three years, averaging between five and eight percent a year, while, on the whole, inflation is slowing.
The World Bank said Ghana continued to increase efficiencies in its public service. It cut bottlenecks in property registration, reducing the time taken to register a property to one month from six months.
Kenya launched an ambitious licensing reform programme, eliminating 110 business licenses and simplifying eight others.
"The changes have streamlined business start-ups and cut both the time and cost of getting building permits," Klein said.
But the World Bank said the viability of domestic business was the main engine of growth and could lift millions of people out of poverty, and its report showed sub-Saharan Africa still had the most complicated regulations.
"The report finds that equity returns are highest in countries that are reforming the most. Investors are looking for upside potential and they find it in economies that are reforming, regardless of their starting point," Klein said.
A separate survey in the World Bank report found that Singapore was, for the second year in a row, the easiest country in which to start and operate a business, followed by New Zealand, United States and Hong Kong.
In Africa, Mauritius topped rankings on the ease of doing business in general, followed by South Africa and Botswana. Kenya and Ghana were ranked 72nd and 87th respectively.
