By Neo Kolane
A World Bank team will visit Lesotho next week to recruit private sector experts for the global financial institution’s upcoming Business Enabling Environment project.
The report replaces the bank’s Doing Business report which was launched in 2002 to provide measures of business regulations and their enforcement in more than 80 economies including Lesotho.
The World Bank country representative in Lesotho, Yoichiro Ishihara, said the team will be in the country for five days as part of its efforts to develop a new approach to assessing the business and investment climate in selected economies worldwide.
“This will be done with the objective of providing a quantitative assessment of the business environment for private sector development in these countries,” Ishihara said in a letter to finance and development planning minister, Retṧelisitsoe Matlanyane.
The World Bank mission is expected to engage with the private sector and recruit experts in different fields including lawyers specialising in commercial disputes, accountants, trade brokers and tax advisors.
“As we have started selecting experts to contribute to our project, we have identified Lesotho as a country where our team would greatly benefit from having a mission to engaging with potential contributors in person,” Ishrana said.
However, there will be no engaging with government officials during the visit, he noted.
The team will comprise Klaus A. Koch-Saldarriaga (Regulatory Specialist and Task Team Leader), Rangpeng Yang (Analyst and co-Task Team Leader), and Relebohile Mohlakoana (Assistant).
