DUSHANBE, May 6, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- A report on “Dealing with Construction Permits” was presented at the Agency for Construction and Architecture under the Government of Tajikistan today.

Senior representatives from the Agency for Construction and Architecture, State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management and other government bodies participating in concurrence of documents necessary for issuing construction permits attended the report-presentation event.

According to the World Bank Dushanbe Office, the report was prepared in the framework of the project, Tajikistan Doing Business Reforms Program 2009-2011.

At the response of the Government of Tajikistan’s request to provide technical assistance with improving its ranking on the World Bank Group’s Doing Business indicators, the teams of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) teams created a joint project – Doing Business Reform Program 2009-2011 – that aims at further strengthening the support to the government to improve the business environment and investment climate in the country.  The project has identified 3 priority indicators (Dealing with construction permits, Registering a property and Trading across borders) for the years of 2009-2011 on which improvement and results can be achieved both in short- and medium-term.  The Project team is also continuing to support work on other Doing Business indicators and by cooperating with related stakeholders it will ensure to maximize the results of the existing projects led by various donors.

According to Doing Business 2010 report, Tajikistan was ranked 177th among 183 countries in the area of Dealing with construction permits.

Taking into account the significance of this sector, the government of Tajikistan has carried out a number of reforms to simplify administrative procedures in the construction sector since last year.   It is, first of all, introduction of “One-stop-shop” (OSS) principle for the construction and architecture departments of cities and districts that has allowed reducing the process of getting architecture development tasks together with technical conditions of connection to engineering networks for developers from several months to 15 working days.

Doing Business is an annual report, investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.  Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies.  Regulations affecting 10 stages of the life of a business are measured: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.