The Permanent Committee for Streamlining Business Environment in the State of Kuwait (PCK), held a coordinating meeting along with its follow up teams, KDIPA’s team, and the lead expert of the World Bank technical support, at the premises of Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) on February 28, 2017 ahead of the upcoming meeting with the Doing Business (DB) Team at the World Bank Group in Washington D.C. to be convened during the period March 6-8, 2017.
KDIPA’s Director General Sheikh Dr. Meshaal Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Chairman of the PCK, headed the meeting asking the attendees to maximize the benefit of being part of the government delegation to this crucial meeting, organized as part of the technical support contract signed between KDIPA and the World Bank in March 2016. The upcoming meeting, is expected to provide a deep dive into the Doing Business report DB2018 updates and methodology, identification of technical issues and procedures relating to Kuwait’s position in Ease of Doing Business Index, published annually by the World Bank Group, and which Kuwait is part of since its inception in DB2004, which will positively affect the PCK execution of the national agenda for streamlining business environment in Kuwait. Dr. Meshaal concluded by reviewing the meeting’s agenda, clarifying the need to avail supporting documents, thanking the delegation for their genuine concern, and wishing them a successful meeting.
It is worth mentioning that the Permanent Committee for Streamlining Business Environment (PCK) carried out intensive and continuous efforts in the previous period in cooperation with its members, follow up teams, and other competent government entities, receiving technical support by the World Bank. In this respect, three technical workshops were organized to analyze five out of ten indicators that comprise the DB Index, covering starting a business, obtaining construction permits, registering property, trading cross borders, and resolving insolvency. Several field visits conducted by KDIPA’s team accompanied by the World Bank experts. These deliberations contributed to the development of the proposed national agenda for streamlining business environment in Kuwait for the short and medium terms.
This proposal presented to the PCK in its meeting held on November 8, 2016, who approved it and allowed for further amendments to be incorporated thus producing final version on December 22, 2016, which in turn was presented for the perusal to the Council of Ministers a part of the PCK Sixth semi-annual report, which depicted its achievements in the period it covered. The Council of Ministers acknowledged the need to speed up execution of the National Agenda for Streamlining Business Environment “Tahseen Program”, and called upon relevant government entities to do their part according to the timeframe specified.
This coordinating meeting comes as a culmination of an ongoing systematic process and planned actions adopted by PCK since its inception by a council of Ministers Decision No. 1551 of 2013 issued on December 18, 2013, in addition to other issued decisions linked to the extension of PCK’s membership. The tasks achieved included preparing semi-annual reports and submitting to the Council of Ministers; taking responsibility of preparing the national official non-exhaustive reports recording developments in doing business in Kuwait and filing the relevant World Bank templates; preparing analytical reports on Kuwait’s position in DB reports; issuing press releases concomitant with the reports launch to amply clarify the true situation; launching public privates open dialogue series; detecting obstacles; performing one to one visits to the contributors of the DB reports; launching Tahseen portal to showcase developments pertaining to all components of doing business, as well as legislations, decisions or measures of relevance intended to make Kuwait doing business more favorable through life cycle of a business entity.
