Doing Business report: Georgia among top three countries for ease of registering property

Georgia is the third country among 189 nations with the simplest procedures of registering property, the Doing Business 2015 report revealed.

The Doing Business report, initiated by the World Bank Group, covered 11 indicators and 189 foreign countries this year to provide objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across the countries surveyed.

The results showed Georgia was the third country after New Zealand and Lithuania where a person could easily register his/her property.

Georgia was also among the top ten countries in terms of ease of ‘starting a business’ – it gained 6th position – while it also ranked highly for ‘getting credit’, 7th place.

Overall Georgia’s results were pleasing. Full results showed:

• Enforcing contracts - 13th
• Dealing with construction permits -11th
• Protecting minority investors - 20th
• Easy of doing business - 24th
• Paying taxes - 40th
• Getting electricity - 62nd
• Trading across borders- 78th
• Resolving insolvency -101st of 189 nations surveyed

Responding to the ratings Georgia Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stressed that "Georgia was one of the most attractive countries in terms of doing business, preceding many developed states.”

The Ministry of Justice of Georgia commented on this year’s survey results and said in previous Doing Business reports, the ‘registering of property’ index only covered only the activities of front offices and were based on the registration time and fee only.

Through the criteria Georgia used to take the first position during the last four years, Georgia offers the minimum time for registration and the service fee compared to other counties is low,” said the Justice Ministry in a statement. It added this year the World Bank also took into account the quality of land administration while specifying the simplicity for registering of property.

The Ministry stressed many problems had accumulated over the years with regard to land administration however the Ministry knew this and was actively working to settle these issues.

We have already launched large-scaled activities and projects to address the problem,” said the Ministry’s statement.

Action already taken included:

• Cadastral and ownership parts of real estate has been merged
• The process to centralise back offices were ongoing in order to offer common registration practices
• Paper archives were being centralised and moved to digital format
• Information preserved on cadastral archives was being transformed into electronic form

Together with the World Bank the Public Registry Office is carrying out a project where citizens can register their rural and non-rural land free of charge, [and this] will gradually remove the problems related to land registration,” Georgia’s Justice Ministry said.

World Bank Acting Regional Director for the South Caucasus Eavan O’Halloran commenting on the recent ratings and said Georgia had kept its leading position for ease of business.

Georgia is among 80 foreign states that undertook two crucial reforms last year. It improved enforcement of contracts through establishing electronic archives and eased issuing of permits for constructions,” she said.

The World Bank envoy also mentioned changed approaches for the 2015 ratings.

The Doing Business report launched in 2002 and provided first ratings in 2003. The ratings helped countries to improve their performance in the areas where they faced some challenges.