June 17 2019
Embargo: none

The Small Business Institute announces today that it is launching a new scorecard – SBI Index Tracker – that will measure South Africa’s performance relative to other countries on the ease of doing business and other metrics of success in the country.

The SBI Index Tracker measures South Africa’s business environment across the start-run-grow continuum, and aggregates a series of globally recognized indices. Indices being tracked by the SBI Index Tracker, which are drawn from reliable and reputable sources, include: Global Entrepreneurship; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; Ease of Doing Business; Global Competitiveness Index; Global Innovation Index; and Corruption Perception Index.

By looking at the indices and sub-indices, we can monitor the environment for businesses at all stages of their development. For instance, start-ups have seen over the past two years a decline in the following measures: financing for entrepreneurs, government support and policies, skills, and getting credit. They’re better off finding risk capital and opportunities for networking.

Running a business fares worse in respect of market size and infrastructure, but has seen marginal improvements in taxes and bureaucracy, labour market efficiency and business sophistication.

Businesses in the growth phase suffer from poorer measurements for Research and Development transfer, internationalization and human capital, while scores for protection for minority investors, trading across borders and knowledge and technology outputs have risen.

This imaginative SBI Index Tracker is available to all South Africans and economic operators on our website – www.smallbusinessinstitute.co.za — and by request as a newsletter. To subscribe, please visit our website.

“The SBI Index Tracker is part of our ongoing efforts to improve the environment for the growth of SMMEs – an important segment of every sector in our economy of which we are voice. And this is our modest contribution to the Thuma Mina call by the President in his State of the Nation Address in February this year,” says Bernard Swanepoel, SBI’s executive director.

In his SONA address last February, President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed an aspiration to see South Africa’s ranking in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Report to be among the top 50 countries. Currently South Africa is ranked 82 out of 190 countries tracked, a precipitous drop from 32 ten years ago.

“As the sixth administration begins its work this Thursday, we hope the deterioration of our performance focuses minds on the critical importance of improving our ranking as an economy. Our hope is that the SBI Index Tracker will keep us all on our toes in holding all role players to account so we can achieve the President’s aspiration and the goal of the National Development Plan to have SMEs contributing 90% of all new jobs by 2030,” says Swanepoel.

He adds: “Maintaining vigilance around – and continuously identifying – constraints to the growth of SMMEs is an important part of our tasks as SBI.”

The SBI Index Tracker will be updated on an ongoing basis.

“The SBI Index Tracker is also an expression of our commitment to fact and evidence-based policy formulation. As well as weeding out barriers to growth of SMMEs in our country, we also urge economic operators to actively participate in all the studies that measure our country’s performance,” says Swanepoel.