Kenya scores big in trade-friendly rules
What you need to know:
- “The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter markets and compete, and security of the person and privately owned property,” the report says.
Kenya has moved up 10 positions in the ranking of countries whose trade policies and governance structures are supportive of economic freedom.
The Economic Freedom of the World annual report released last week shows that the country rose from last year’s position 88 to 77 in the 2014 survey.
Though Kenya achieved a better ranking than last year, it still trails regional counterparts Rwanda and Uganda.
“The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter markets and compete, and security of the person and privately owned property,” the report says.
Rwanda topped in the region once again, at position 29, an improvement from position 36 in 2013.
Uganda improved from 64 to 57 while Burundi maintained its position 145 from the previous year. A total of 152 countries were surveyed.
The report says there exists a strong correlation between a country’s economic freedom score and its economic growth.
DEGREE OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM
The index is a summary that measures the degree of economic freedom in five broad areas including the size of government, legal structures, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally and regulation of credit, labour and business.
It assesses the degree to which a country’s policies and institutions are supportive of economic freedom.
“Economic freedom has been shown to promote prosperity and other positive outcomes in developed and developing societies. This vindicates calls for unshackling of markets from the tight clutches of government control,” Eastern Africa Policy Centre Programmes director Alex Njeru told the Nation yesterday.
