Economy Profile:
Comoros

2 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

© 2013 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development /
The World Bank
1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433
Telephone: 202- 473-1000; Internet : www.wo rldbank.org
All rights reserved.
1 2 3 4 15 14 13 12
A copublication of The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions.
Note that The World Bank does not necessar ily own each component of the content
included in the work. The World Bank therefore does not warrant that the use of the
content contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. The risk
of claims resulting from such infringement re sts solely with you.
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not
necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or
the governments they represent . The World Bank does not guarantee the ac curacy of
the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other
information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of
The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or
acceptance of such boundaries.
Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of
the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically
reserved.
Rights and Permissions

This work is available u nder the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
(CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
. Under the Creative
Commons Attribution license, you are free to copy, distribute, tr ansmit, and adapt
this work, including for commercial purposes, under the following conditions:
Attribution—Please cite the w ork as follows: World Bank. 2013 . Doing Business 2013:
Smart er Regulations for Small and Medium -Size Enterprises. Washington, DC: W orld
Bank Group. DOI: 10.1596/978- 0-8213- 9615-5. License: Creative Commons
Attribution CC BY 3.0
Translations —If you create a translation of this work, please add the following
disclaimer along with the attribution: This translation was not created by The World
Bank and should not be considered an official World Bank translation. The World Bank
shall not be liable for any content or error in this translation .
All queries on rights and licenses should be addressed to the Office of the Publisher,
The World Ba nk, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202- 522-2625;
e -mail: pubrights@worldbank.org.
Additional copies of all 10 editions of Doing Business may be purchased at
www.doingbusiness.org.
Cover design: Corporate Vision s, Inc.

3 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

CONTENTS

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
The business e nvironment ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
S tarting a business ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14
D ealing with construction permits ………………………………………………………………………………. 23
Getting electricity ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 32
R egister ing property …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 38
Getting credit ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 47
Protecting investors ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 54
Paying t axes ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 63
T rading across borders ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 71
E nforcing contracts …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 80
Resol ving insolvency …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 91
E mploying workers …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 95
Data n otes ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 102
Resources on the Doing Business website …………………………………………………………………. 107

4 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

INTRODUCTION
Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is
for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to
medium- size business when complying with relevant
regulations. It measures and tracks changes in
regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a
business: starting a business, dealing with construction
permits, getting electricity, registering property,
getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes,
trading ac ross borders, enforcing contracts , resolving
insolvency and employing workers .
In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents
quantitative indicators on business regulations and the
protection of property rights that can be compared
across 18 5 econo mies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe,
over time. The data set covers 46 economies in Sub –
Saharan Africa, 3 3 in Latin America and the Caribbean,
24 in East Asia and the Pacific, 24 in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia, 1 9 in the Middle East and North
Africa and 8 in South Asia, as well as 31 OECD high –
income economies. The indicators are used to analyze
economic outcomes and identify what reforms have
worked, where and why.
This economy profile presents the Doing Business
indicators for Comoros. To allow useful comparison, it
also provides data for other selected economies
(comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in
this report are current as of June 1, 201 2 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period
January
–December 2011 ).
The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other
areas important to business —such as an economy’s
proximity to large markets, the quality of its
infrastructure services (other than those related to
trading across borders and getting electricity), the
securi ty of property from theft and looting, the
transparency of government procurement,
macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength
of institutions —are not directly studied by Doing
Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of
business, generall y a local limited liability company
operating in the largest business city. Because
standard assumptions are used in the data collection,
comparisons and benchmarks are valid across
economies. The data not only highlight the extent of
obstacles to doing bu siness; they also help identify the
source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in
designing regulatory reform.
More information is available in the full report. Doing
Business 2013 presents the indicators, analyzes their
relationship with economic outcomes and presents
business regulatory reforms. The data, along with
information on ordering Doing Business 2013 , are
available on the Doing Business website at
https://www.doingbusiness.org.

5 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

For policy makers trying to impr ove their economy’s
regulatory environment for business, a good place to
start is to find out how it compares with the regulatory
environment in other economies. Doing Business
provides an aggregate ranking on the ease of doing
business based on indicator sets that measure and
benchmark regulations applying to domestic small to
medium -size businesses through their life cycle.
Economies are ranked from 1 to 18 5 by the ease of
doing business index. For each economy the index is
calculated as the ranking on th e simple average of its
percentile rankings on each of the 10 topics included in
the index in Doing Business 2013 : starting a business,
dealing with construction permits, getting electricity,
registering property, getting credit, protecting
investors, payi ng taxes, trading across borders,
enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency . The
ranking on each topic is the simple average of the
percentile rankings on its component indicators (see
the data notes for more details). The employing workers
indicators a re not included in this year’s aggregate ease
of doing business ranking , but the data are presented
in this year’s economy profile.
The aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business
benchmarks each economy’s performance on the
indicators against that of all other economies in the
Doing Business sample (figure 1.1). While this ranking
tells much about the business environment in an
economy, it does not tell the whole story. The ranking on
the ease of doing business, and the underlying
indicators, do not me asure all aspects of the business
environment that matter to firms and investors or that
affect the competitiveness of the economy. Still, a high
ranking does mean that the government has created a
regulatory environment conducive to operating a
business.
ECONOMY OVERVIEW
Region: Sub -Saharan Africa
Income category: Low income
Population: 753,943
GNI per capita (US$): 770
DB2013 rank: 158
DB2012 rank: 158*
Change in rank: 0

* DB2012 ranking shown is no t last year’s published
ranking but a comparable r anking for DB2012 that
capture s the effects of such factors as data
corrections and the addition of 2 economies
(Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year. See
the data notes for sources and definitions.

6 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Figure 1.1 Where economies stand in the global ranking on the ease of doing business

Source: Doing Business database.

7 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
For policy makers, knowing where their economy
stands in the aggregate ranking on the ease of
doing business is useful. Al so useful is to know how
it ranks relative to comparator economies and relative to the regional average (figure 1.2). The
economy’s rankings on the topics included in the
ease of doing business index provide another
perspective (figure 1.3).

Figure 1.2 H ow Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of doing business

Source: Doing Business database.

8 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Figure 1. 3 How Comoros ranks on Doing Business topics

Source: Doing Business database.

9 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
Just as the overall ranking on the ease of doing business
tells only part of the story, so do changes in that ranking.
Yearly movements in rankings can provide some indication
of changes in an economy’s regulatory environment for
firms, but they are always relative. An economy’s ranking
might change because of developments in other
economies. An economy that implemented business
regulation reforms may fail to rise in the rankings (or may
even drop) if it is passed by others whose business
regulation reforms had a more significant impact as
measured by Doing Business .
Moreover, year -to -year changes in the overall rankings do
not reflect how the business regulatory environment in an
economy has changed over time —or how it has changed
in different areas. To aid in assessing such changes, last year
Doing Business introduce d the distance to frontier
measure. This measure shows how far each economy is
from the best performance achieved by any economy since
2005 on each indicator in 9 Doing Business indicator sets.
Com paring the measure for an economy at 2 points in
time allows users to assess how much the economy’s
regulatory environment as measured by Doing Business
has changed over time —how far it has moved toward (or
away from) the most efficient practices and stron gest
regulations in areas covered by Doing Business (figure 1. 4).
The results may show that the pace of change varies widely
across the areas measured. They also may show that an
economy is relatively close to the frontier in some areas
and relatively far from it in others.

Figure 1.4 How far has Comoros come in the areas measured by Doing Business ?
Note: The distance to frontier measure shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any
economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005. The measure is normalized to range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing
the best performance (the frontier). The overall distance to frontier is the average of the distance to frontier in the 9 indicator se ts
shown in the figure. See the data notes for more details on the distance to frontier measure.
Source: Doing Business database.

10 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
The absolute values of the indicators tell another part
of the story (table 1.1). The indicators, on their own or
in comparison with the indicators of a good practice
economy or those of comparator economies in the
region, may reveal bottlenecks reflected in large
numbers of procedures, long delays or high costs. Or
they may reveal unexpected strengths in an area of business regulation
—such as a regulatory process that
can be completed with a small number of procedures
in a few days and at a low cost. Comparison of the
economy’s indicators today with those in the previous
year may show where substantial bottlenecks persist —
and where they are diminishing.

Table 1.1 Summary of Doing Business indicators for Comoros

Indicator
Comoros DB2013 Comoros DB2012 Kenya DB2013 Madagascar DB201 3 Mauritius DB2013 Mozambique DB2013 Oman DB2013 South Africa DB2013 Best performer globally DB2013
Starting a Business
(rank) 168 171 126 17 14 96 73 53 New Zealand (1)
Procedures (number) 9 10 10 2 5 9 5 5 New Zealand (1)*
Time (days) 20 22 32 8 6 13 8 19 New Zealand (1)
Cost (% of income per
capita) 150.0 171.5 40.4 10.8 3.3 19.7 2.6 0.3 Slovenia (0.0)
Paid -in Min. Capital (%
of income per capita) 261.9 252.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 223.1 0.0 91 Economies (0.0)*
Dealing with
Construction Permits
(rank)
60 52 45 148 62 135 59 39 Hong Kong SAR,
China (1)
Procedures (number) 13 13 9 16 16 14 13 13 Hong Ko
ng SAR,
China (6)*
Time (days) 143 143 125 172 143 377 174 127 Singapore (26)
Cost (% of income per
capita) 74.5 71.9 211.9 1,116.9 28.5 113.3 37.6 33.4 Qatar (1.1)

11 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Indicator
Comoros DB2013 Comoros DB2012 Kenya DB2013 Madagascar DB201 3 Mauritius DB2013 Mozambique DB2013 Oman DB2013 South Africa DB2013 Best performer globally DB2013
Getting Electricity
(rank) 104 100 162 183 44 174 54 150 Iceland (1)
Procedures (number ) 3 3 6 6 4 9 6 5 Germany (3)*
Time (days) 120 120 146 450 84 117 62 226 Germany (17)
Cost (% of income per
capita) 2,477.2 2,383.8 1,208.2 9,056.7 295.1 2,394.7 51.3 1,505.8 Japan (0.0)
Registering Property
(rank) 77 89 161 147 60 155 18 79 Georgia (1)
Procedures (number) 4 4 9 6 4 8 2 6 Georgia (1)*
Time (days) 30 30 73 74 15 42 16 23 Portugal (1)
Cost (% of property
value) 10.5 16.5 4.3 10.5 10.6 8.0 3.0 5.9 Belarus (0.0)*
Getting Credit (rank) 154 152 12 180 53 129 83 1 United Kingdom (1)*
Stre ngth of legal rights
index (0 -10) 6 6 10 2 6 3 4 10 Malaysia (10)*
Depth of credit
information index (0 -6) 0 0 4 0 5 4 5 6 United Kingdom (6)*
Public registry coverage
(% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 56.3 4.4 37.3 0.0 Portugal (90.7)
Private bureau
coverage (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 4.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 54.0 United Kingdom
(100.0)*
Protecting Investors
(rank) 139 136 100 70 13 49 100 10 New Zealand (1)
Extent of disclosure 6 6 3 5 6 5 8 8
Hong Kong SAR,

12 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Indicator
Comoros DB2013 Comoros DB2012 Kenya DB2013 Madagascar DB201 3 Mauritius DB2013 Mozambique DB2013 Oman DB2013 South Africa DB2013 Best performer globally DB2013
index (0 -10) China (10)*
Extent of director
liability index (0 -10) 1 1 2 6 8 4 5 8 Singapore (9)*
Ease of shareholder
suits index (0-10) 5 5 10 6 9 9 2 8 New Zealand (10)*
Strength of investor
protection index (0 -10) 4.0 4.0 5.0 5.7 7.7 6.0 5.0 8.0 New Zealand (9.7)
Paying Taxes (rank) 114 115 164 68 12 105 10 32 United Arab Emirates
(1)
Payments (number per
year) 33 33 41 23 7 37 14 9 Hong Kong SAR,
China (3)*
Time (hours per year) 100 100 340 201 161 230 62 200 United Arab Emirates
(12)
Trading Across Borders
(rank) 146 143 148 112 15 134 49 115 Singapo re (1)
Documents to export
(number) 9 9 8 4 5 7 8 6 France (2)
Time to export (days) 31 31 26 21 10 23 10 16 Singapore (5)*
Cost to export (US$ per
container) 1,295 1,207 2,255 1,197 660 1,100 745 1,620 Malaysia (435)
Documents to import
(number) 10 10 7 9 6 10 8 7 France (2)
Time to import (days) 26 26 26 24 10 28 9 23 Singapore (4)
Cost to import (US$ per
container) 1,295 1,191 2,350 1,555 695 1,545 680 1,940 Malaysia (420)

13 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Indicator
Comoros DB2013 Comoros DB2012 Kenya DB2013 Madagascar DB201 3 Mauritius DB2013 Mozambique DB2013 Oman DB2013 South Africa DB2013 Best performer globally DB2013
Enforcing Contracts
(rank) 159 158 149 156 58 132 107 82 Luxembourg (1)
Time (days) 506 506 465 871 645 730 598 600 Singapore (150)
Cost (% of claim) 89.4 89.4 47.2 42.4 16.3 142.5 13.5 33.2 Bhutan (0.1)
Procedures (number) 43 43 44 38 36 30 51 29 Ireland (21)*
Resolving Insolvency
(rank) 185 185 100 151 64 147 77 84 Japan (1 )
Time (years) no
practice no
practice 4.5
2.0 1.7 5.0 4.0 2.0 Ireland (0.4)
Cost (% of estate) no
practice no
practice 22
30 15 9 4 18 Singapore (1)*
Outcome (0 as
piecemeal sale and 1 as
going concern)
no
practice
1 0 0 0 0 0
Recovery rate (cents o n
the dollar) 0.0 0.0 29.5 12.9 40.9 15.0 36.6 35.4 Japan (92.8)
Note: DB2012 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of
such factors as data corrections and the addition of 2 econo mies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year. The ranking
methodology for the paying taxes indicators changed in Doing Business 201 3; see the data notes for details.
For more information
on “no practice” marks, see the data notes. Data for the outcome of the resolving insolvency indicator are not available for
DB2012.

* Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. A number shown in place of an economy’s name indicates the
number of economies that share the top ranking on the indicator . For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website
(https://www.doingbusiness.org).
Source: Doing Business database.

14 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Formal registration of companies has many
immediate benefits for the companies and for
business owners an d employees. Legal entities can
outlive their founders. Resources are pooled as
several shareholders join forces to start a company.
Formally registered companies have access to
services and institutions from courts to banks as
well as to new markets. And their employees can
benefit from protections provided by the law. An
additional benefit comes with limited liability
companies. These limit the financial liability of
company owners to their investments, so personal
assets of the owners are not put at risk . Where
governments make registration easy, more
entrepreneurs start businesses in the formal sector,
creating more good jobs and generating more
revenue for the government.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business measures the ease of starting a
busi ness in an economy by recording all
procedures officially required or commonly done in
practice by an entrepreneur to start up and
formally operate an industrial or commercial
business —as well as the time and cost required to
complete these procedures. It also records the
paid -in minimum capital that companies must
deposit before registration (or within 3 months).
The ranking on the ease of starting a business is
the simple average of the percentile rankings on
the 4 component indicators: procedures, time, cost
and paid -in minimum capital requirement.
To make the data comparable across economies,
Doing Business uses several assumptions about the
business and the procedures. It assumes that all
information is readily available to the entrepreneur
and that th ere has been no prior contact with
officials. It also assumes that the entrepreneur will
pay no bribes . And it assumes that the business:
• Is a limited liability company, located in the
largest business city.
• Has between 10 and 50 employees.
• Conducts genera l commercial or industrial
activities.
WHAT THE STARTING A BUSINESS
INDICATORS MEASURE
Procedures to legally start and operate a
company (number)
Preregistration (for example, name
verification or reservation, notarization)
Registration in the economy’s largest
business city
Postregistration (for example, social security
registration, company seal)
Time required to complete each procedure
(calendar days)
Does not include time spent gathering
information
Each procedure starts on a separate day
Procedure completed once final document is
received
No prior contact with officials
Cost required to complete each procedure
(% of income per capita)
Official costs only, no bribes
No professional fees unless services required
by law
Paid-in minimum capital (% of income
per capita)
Deposited in a bank or with a notary before
registration (or within 3 months)
• Has a start -up capital of 10 times income per
capita.
• Has a turnover of at least 100 times income per
capita.
• Does not qualify for any special benefits.
• Does not own real estate.
• Is 100% domestically owned.

15 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Where does the economy stand today?
What does it take to start a business in Comoros?
According to data collected by Doing Business, starting
a business there requires 9 procedures, takes 20 days, costs
150.0% of income per capita and requires paid -in
minimum capital of 261.9% of income per capita
(figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 What it takes to start a business in Comoros
Paid -in minimum capital (% of income per capita): 261.9

Note: Ti me shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. For more information on the methodology of
the starting a business indicators, see the Doing Business website (https://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the
procedures reflected h ere, see the summary at the end of this chapter.
Source: Doing Business database.

16 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Globally, Comoros stands at 168 in the ranking of 18 5
economies on the ease of starting a business (figure
2.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful

information for assessing how easy it is for an
entrepreneur in Comoros to start a business.

Figure 2.2 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of starting a business

Source: Doing Busi ness database .

17 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to start a business in Comoros
today, data over time show which aspects of the process have changed
—and which have not (table 2.1).
That can help identify where the potential for
improvement is greatest.

Table 2.1 The ease of starting a business in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2004 DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 171 168
Procedures
(number) n.a. n.a. 11 10 10 10 10 10 10 9
Time (days) n.a. n.a. 24 22 22 22 22 22 22 20
Cost (% of
income per
capita)
n.a. n.a. 192.6 188.5 188.6 192.3 181.3 171.1 171.5 150.0
Paid -in Min .
Capital (% of
income per
capita)
n.a. n.a. 259.1 291.7 280.3 280.8 261.8 245.5 252.9 261.9
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the
addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
Source: Doing Business database.

18 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies that over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the procedures,
time, cost or paid -in minimum capital required to start a business (figure 2.3). These benchmarks help show
what is possible in making it easi
er to start a business.
And changes in regional averages can show where
Comoros is keeping up —and where it is falling behind.

Figure 2.3 Has starting a business become easier over time?
Procedures (number)

Time (days)

19 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Cost (% of income per capita)

Paid -in minimum capital (% of income per capita)

Note: Ninety -one economies globally have no paid- in minimum capital requirement.
Source: Doing Business database.

20 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
Economies around the world have taken steps making
it easier to start a business —streamlining procedures
by setting up a one -stop shop, making procedures
simpler or faster by introducing technology and
reducing or eliminating minimum capital requirements.
Many have undertaken business registration ref orms in
stages —and they often are part of a larger regulatory
reform program. Among the benefits have been greater firm satisfaction and savings and more
registered businesses, financial resources and job
opportunities.

What business registration reforms h as Doing Business
recorded in Comoros (table 2.2)?

Table 2.2 How has Comoros made starting a business easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 Comoros made the process of starting a business more
difficult by increasing the minimum capital requirement.
DB2013
The Comoros made s tarting a business easier and less costly
by replacing the requirement for a copy of the founders’
criminal records with one for a sworn declaration at the time
of the company’s registration and by reducing the fees to
incorporate a company.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

21 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

STARTING A BUSINESS
What are the details?
Underlying the indicators shown in this chapter for
Comoros is a set of specific procedures —the
bureaucratic and legal steps that an entrepreneur
must complete to inco rporate and register a new
firm. These are identified by Doing Business
through collaboration with relevant local
professio nals and the study of laws, regulations and
publicly available information on business entry in
that economy. Following is a detailed summary of
those procedures, along with the associated time
and cost. These procedures are those that apply to
a company m atching the standard assumptions
(the “standardized company”) used by Doing
Business in collecting the data (see the section in
this chapter on what the indicators measure).
STANDARDIZED COMPANY
City: Moroni
Legal Form: Limited Liability Company
Paid in Minimum Capital Requirement: XOF
1,000,000
Start-up C apital: 10 times GNI per capita

Summary of procedures for starting a business in Comoros —and the time and cost
No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
1
Verify and reserve the company na me

To avoid future lawsuits, the founders must pick a name that is not
already in use.
1 day no charge
2
Deposit and register the company’s articles of association with the
public notary

2 days KMF 22,500 for the
statement of deposit
3
Deposit the leg ally required capital in a bank and obtain the
deposit evidence

Either the entrepreneur or the notary public deposits the initial capital
in a bank and obtains the deposit receipt.
4 days KMF 55,000
4
Deposit company statutes at Ministry of Finance

2 days
KMF 15,000 KMF +
KMF 500 for stamp duty per page (3
copies of the statutes;
10 pages per statute)
5
Register the company at the commercial court

To register a company at the Commercial Court, the following
documents are required:

• The list of managers, administrators, or associates with the power to
act on behalf of the company (two copies)
• The property title or lease agreement
1 day KMF 10,000

22 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
• Capital declaration
• Copies of the statutes certified by FIS
• Managers’ criminal records

Although the requirement to publish the statutes in the Official Journal
is mandated by the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law
in Africa (Organisation pour l'Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en
Afrique, OHADA), this requirement is not observed because (a) the
Official Journal does not function consistently; and (b) the publication
fee has not been published; thus, the registrar has no power to charge
for publication. There are other daily and weekly journals in which to
publish. At the directors’ discretion, they may opt to publish in other
daily and weekly journals.
6
Obtain the professional license (patente) at the tax administration

The professional license may be obtained at a fee of 10% of the annual
lease value plus a fixed fee, according t o the table of activities (i.e., KMF
150,000 for a general wholesale retailer), plus 10% of said percentage
and fee combined as an additional tax (centime additionelle commune).
8 days see comments
7
* Legalize the company books at court

7 days (simult aneous
with previous
procedure) KMF 1,000 per book
8
Make a company seal

2 days KMF 10,000
9
* Register for social security

1 day (simultaneous
with previous
procedure) no charge
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
Source: Doing B usiness database.

23 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS

Regulation of construction is critical to protect the
public. But it needs to be efficient, to avoid
excessive constraints on a sector that plays an
important part in every economy. Where complying
with building regulations is excessively costly in
time and money, many builders opt out. They may
pay bribes to pass inspections or simply build
illegally, leading to hazardous construction that
puts public safety at risk. Where compliance is
simple, straight forward and inexpensive, everyone
is better off.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business records the procedures, time and
cost for a business to obtain all the necessary
approvals to build a simple commercial warehouse
in the economy’s largest busines s city, connect it to
basic utilities and register the property so that it
can be used as collateral or transferred to another
entity.
The ranking on the ease of dealing with
construction permits is the simple average of the
percentile rankings on its com ponent indicators:
procedures, time and cost.
To make the data comparable across economies,
Doing Business uses several assumptions about the
business and the warehouse, including the utility
connections.
The business:
• Is a limited liability company operat ing in
the construction business and located in
the largest business city.
• Is domestically owned and operated.
• Has 60 builders and other employees.
The warehouse:
• Is a new construction (there was no
previous construction on the land).
• Has complete architec tural and technical
plans prepared by a licensed architect.

WHAT THE DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION
PERMITS INDICATORS MEASURE
Procedures to legally build a warehouse
(number)
Submitting all relevant documents and
obtaining all necessary clearances, license s,
permits and certificates
Completing all required notifications and
receiving all necessary inspections
Obtaining utility connections for water,
sewerage and a fixed telephone line
Registering the warehouse after its
completion (if required for use as co llateral or
for transfer of the warehouse)
Time required to complete each procedure
(calendar days)
Does not include time spent gathering
information
Each procedure starts on a separate day
Procedure completed once final document is
received
No prior cont act with officials
Cost required to complete each procedure (%
of income per capita)
Official costs only, no bribes
• Will be connected to water, sewerage
(sewage system, septic tank or their
equivalent) and a fixed telephone line. The
connection to each ut ility network will be 10
meters (32 feet, 10 inches) long.
• Will be used for general storage, such as of
books or stationery (not for goods requiring
special conditions).
• Will take 30 weeks to construct (excluding all
delays due to administrative and regula tory
requirements).

24 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
Where does the economy stand today?
What does it take to comply with the formalities to
build a warehouse in Comoros? According to data
collected by Doing Business , dealing with construction permits
there requires 13 procedures, takes 143 days
and costs 74.5% of income per capita (figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 What it takes to comply with formalities to build a warehouse in Comoros

Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of pr ocedures. For more information on the methodology of
the dealing with construction permits indicator s, see the Doing Business website (https://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on
the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter.
Source: Doing Business database.

25 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
Globally, Comoros stands at 60 in the ranking of 185
economies on the ease of dealing with construction
permits (figure 3.2). The rankings for comparator
economies and the regional averag e ranking provide other useful
information for assessing how easy it is for
an entrepreneur in Comoros to legally build a
warehouse.
Figure 3 .2 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of dealing with construction permits

Source: Doing Bus iness database.

26 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
What are the changes over time?

While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to deal with construction permits
in Comoros today, data over time show which aspects of t
he process have changed —and which have not
(table 3.1). That can help identify where the potential
for improvement is greatest.

Table 3.1 The ease of dealing with construction permits in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. 52 60
Procedures (number) 13 13
13 13 13 13 13 13
Time (days) 143 143
143 143 143 143 143 143
Cost (% of income
per capita) 85.8 85.7
82.4 82.5 76.9 72.2 71.9 74.5
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addition of 2 e conomies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see the
data notes.
Source: Doing Business database.

27 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies tha t over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the procedures,
time or cost required to deal with construction permits
(figure 3.3). These benchmarks help show what is possible in making it easier to deal
with construction
permits. And changes in regional averages can show
where Comoros is keeping up —and where it is falling
behind.
Figure 3.3 Has dealing with construction permits become easier over time?
Procedures (number)

Time (days)

28 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
Cost (% of income per capita)

Source: Doing Business database.

29 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
Smart regulation ensures that standards are met while
making compliance easy and accessible to all.
Coherent and transparent rules, efficient processes and
adequate allocation of resources are especially
important in sectors where safety is at stake.
Construction is one of them. In an effort to ensure building safety while keeping compliance costs
reasonable, governments around the world have
worked on consolidating
permitting requirements.
What construction permitting reforms has Doing
Business recorded in Comoros (table 3.2)?

Table 3.2 How has Comoros made dealing with construction permits easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.org .
Source: Doing Business database.

30 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS
What are the details?
The indicators reported here for Comoros are
based on a set of specific procedures —the steps
that a company must complete to legally build a
warehouse —identified by Doing Business through
information collected from experts in const ruction
licensing, including architects, construction
lawyers, construction firms, utility service providers
and public officials who deal with building
regulations. These procedures are those that apply
to a company and structure matching the standard
ass umptions used by Doing Business in collecting
the data (see the section in this chapter on what
the indicators cover).
BUILDING A WAREHOUSE
City : Moroni
Estimated
Warehouse Value : KMF 15,500,000
The procedures, along with the associated time and
co st, are summarized below.
Summary of procedures for dealing with construction permits in Comoros —and the time and cost
No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
1
Obtain Urbanism Certificate

The planning permit (permis d'attribution) certifie s that a commercial
warehouse can be built on the plot of land.
7 days no charge
2
Obtain certificate of ownership (certificat d’immatriculation
foncière)

The certificate of ownership must be obtained 3 months before starting
construction.

5 days KMF 1,000
3
Apply for Building permit and request inspection for the plan
croquis

The architect applies for the building permit and requests an inspection
for the "Plan Croquis" at the same time from the Service
Topographique (Service de l'Urbanisme). The Su rveyor will visit the
land and draws the plan site.

15 days KMF 40,000
4
Receives inspection by the Commission

The Commission de l'Urbanisme includes the Services des Domaines,
Service de l'Urbanisme et Département des Travaux Publics, will jointly
vi sit the site. This visit will determine whether the land meets all the
requirements and that the information provided in the documents
correspond to the characteristics of the plot of land. If everything is
fine, the 3 agencies approve the application and sign on the document.
The document is later submitted to the Prefecture for signature for final
approval.
5 days no charge
5 Obtain building permit
7 days KMF 75,000

31 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
To obtain a building permit, a dossier (including three copies of the
documents) should be submitted. Thi s dossier should include:
• A certificat d'immatriculation, certifying the ownership of the
property, not older than three months
• Acte de vente or acte de notoriété public documents that prove the
ownership of the land
• Plan de masse
• Plan croquis
• Architectura plan including: foundation plan; coupe transversal;
façade principale and perspective
• An estimation of costs

6
Request and receive municipal inspection at the start of
construction

This includes an inspection by the muni cipality (services des domains).
There are no surprise inspections. The site is inspected according to the
plans submitted during the approval process.
1 day no charge
7
Request and receive final inspection once construction is
completed

1 day no charge
8
Obtain certificate of conformity

BuildCo must receive approval from the local authority that the
warehouse is in compliance with the building plans submitted.
10 days no charge
9
Register the building with the Ministry of Finance (Service des
Domaine s)

7 days no charge
10
* Apply for water connection

1 day KMF 54,750
11
* Apply for Telephone connection

1 day no charge
12
Obtain water connection

55 days no charge
13
Obtain fixed telephone line

30 days KMF 42,525
* Takes place simultaneo usly with another procedure.
Source: Doing Business database.

32 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

G ETTING ELECTRICITY
Access to reliable and affordable electricity is vital
for businesses. To counter weak electricity supply,
many firms in developing economies have to rely
on self -supply, o ften at a prohibitively high cost.
Whether electricity is reliably available or not, the
first step for a customer is always to gain access by
obtaining a connection.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business records all procedures required for
a local business to obtain a permanent electricity
connection and supply for a standardized
warehouse, as well as the time and cost to
complete them. These procedures include
applications and contracts with electricity utilities,
clearances from other agencies and the external
and final connection works. The ranking on the
ease of getting electricity is the simple average of
the percentile rankings on its component
indicators: procedures, time and cost. To make the
data comparable across economies, several
assumpti ons are used.
The warehouse:
• Is located in the economy’s largest
business city, in an area where other
warehouses are located.
• Is not in a special economic zone where
the connection would be eligible for
subsidization or faster service.
• Has road access. T he connection works
involve the crossing of a road or roads but
are carried out on public land.
• Is a new construction being connected to
electricity for the first time.
• Has 2 stories, both above ground, with a
total surface of about 1,300.6 square
meters (14,000 square feet), and is built on
a plot of 929 square meters (10,000 square
feet).
The electricity connection:
• Is a 3 -phase, 4 -wire Y, 140 -kilovolt -ampere
(kVA) (subscribed capacity) connection.

WHAT THE GETTING ELECTRICITY
INDICATORS MEASURE
Procedures to obtain an electricity
connection (number)
Submitting all relevant documents and
obtaining all necessary clearances and permits
Completing all required notifications and
receiving all necessary inspections
Obtaining external installation works and
possibly purchasing material for these works
Concluding any necessary supply contract and
obtaining final supply
Time required to complete each procedure
(calendar days)
Is at least 1 calendar day
Each procedure starts on a separate day
Does not include time spent gathering
information
Reflects the time spent in practice, with little
follow-up and no prior contact with officials
Cost required to complete each procedure
(% of income per capita)
Official costs only, no bribes
Excludes value added tax
• Is 150 meters long.
• Is to either the low -voltage or the medium –
voltage distribution network and either overhead
or underground, whichever is more common in
the economy and in the area where the
warehouse is located. The length of any
connection in the customer’s private domain is
negligible.
• Involves installing one electricity meter. The
monthly electricity consumption will be 0.07
gigawatt -hour (GWh). The internal electrical
wiring has been completed.

33 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING ELECTRICITY
Where does the economy stand today?
What does it take to obtain a new electricity
connection in Comoros? According to data collected
by Doing Business, getting electricity there requires 3 procedures, takes 120
days and costs 2477.2% of
income per capita (figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1 W hat it takes to obtain an electricity connection in Comoros

Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. For more information on the methodology of
the getting electricity indicators, see the Doing Business website (h ttp://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures
reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter.
Source: Doing Business database.

34 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING ELECTRICITY
Globally, Comoros stands at 104 in the ranking of 185
economies on the ease of g etting electricity (figure
4.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide another perspective
in assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in
Comoros to connect a warehouse to electricity.

Figure 4.2 How Comoros a nd comparator economies rank on the ease of getting electricity

Source: Doing Business database.

35 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING ELECTRICITY
Even more helpful than rankings on the ease of getting
electricity may be the indicators underlyin g those
rankings (table 4.1). And reg ional and global best performers
on these indicators may provide useful
benchmarks.

Table 4.1 The ease of getting electricity in Comoros
Indicator Comoros DB 2013 Comoros DB 2012
Best performer in
Sub-Saharan Africa
DB2013
Best performer
globally DB2013
Rank 104 100 Mauritius (44) Iceland (1)
Procedures
(number) 3 3 Comoros (3) Germany (3)*
Time (days) 120 120 Rwanda (30) Germany (17)
Cost (% of income
per capita) 2,477.2 2,383.8 Mauritius (295.1) Japan (0.0)
Note: DB2012 rankings shown are not las t year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the
effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
* Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website
(https://www.doingbusiness.org).
Source: Doing Business database.

36 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING ELECTRICITY
Obtaining an electricity connection is essential to
enable a business to conduct its most basic operations.
In many economies the connection process is
complicated by the multiple laws and regulations
involved—covering service quality, general safety,
technical standards, procurement practices and
internal wiring installations. In an effort to ensure safety in the connection process while keeping
connection costs reasonable, governments around the
world have worked to consolidate requirements for
obtaining an electricity connection. What reforms in
getting electricity has
Doing Business recorded in
Co moros (table 4.2)?

Table 4.2 How has Comoros made getting electricity easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Source: Doing Business database.

37 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING ELECTRICITY
What are the details?
The indicators reported here for Comoros are based
on a set of specific procedures —the steps that an
entrepreneur must complete to get a warehouse
connected to electricity by the local distribution
ut ility —identified by Doing Business. Data are collected
from the distribution utility, then completed and
verified by electricity regulatory agencies and
independent professionals such as electrical engineers,
electrical contractors and construction companies. The
electricity distribution utility surveyed is the one
serving the area (or areas) in which warehouses are
located. If there is a choice of distribution utilities, the
one serving the largest number of customers is
selected. OBTAINING AN ELECTRICITY CONNECTION
City : Moroni
Name of Utility : MaMWE
The procedures are those that apply to a warehouse
and electricity connection matching the standard
assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the
data (see the section in this chapter on what the
indicators cover). The procedures, along with the
associated time and cost, are summarized below.
Summary of procedures for getting electricity in Comoros —and the time and cost
No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
1
The client submits an a pplication to Ma -MWE and awaits estimate
of connection fees

The following documents are needed along with the application:
– ID card
– Connection authorization from MA -MWE (or from the closest pole's
owner)
– Property title (in practice, this has never be en requested)
– A plan of the installations (in practice, this has never been requested)
10 calendar days KMF 5,000.0
2
* The client obtains external inspection by Ma -MWE

An inspection of the site is needed to carry out a technical study of the
connectio n works.
1 calendar day no charge
3
The client obtains external works and final connection from Ma –
MWE

Only MA -MWE is in charge of the external works (which, in this case,
consist of installing an overhead substation).
The material for this case is usua lly not available in the utility's stock, and
it has to be imported (especially for the transformer), often from France.
The material to be installed includes the overhead transformer and its
accessories (on both sides of the transformers), cables, poles ( a pole
every 70 meters), joints, panel, and meter.
The excavation permit is obtained by the utility from the relevant public
agencies.
No inspection of the internal wiring is carried out.
110 calendar days KMF 7,089,550.5
* Takes place simultaneously wit h another procedure.
Source: Doing Business database.

38 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY

Ensuring formal property rights is fundamental.
Effective administration of land is part of that. If
formal property transfer is too costly or
complicated, formal titles might go informal
again. And where property is informal or poorly
administered, it has little chance of being
accepted as collateral for loans —limiting access to
finance.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business records the full sequence of
procedures necessar y for a business to purchase
property from another business and transfer the
property title to the buyer’s name. The transaction
is considered complete when it is opposable to
third parties and when the buyer can use the
property, use it as collateral for a bank loan or
resell it. The ranking on the ease of registering
property is the simple average of the percentile
rankings on its component indicators: procedures,
time and cost.
To make the data comparable across economies,
several assumptions about the p arties to the
transaction, the property and the procedures are
used.
The parties (buyer and seller):
• Are limited liability companies, 100%
domestically and privately owned.
• Are located in the periurban area of the
economy’s largest business city.
• Have 50 e mployees each, all of whom are
nationals.
• Perform general commercial activities.
The property (fully owned by the seller):
• Has a value of 50 times income per capita.
The sale price equals the value.
• Is registered in the land registry or
cadastre, or both, and is free of title
disputes.
• Is located in a periurban commercial zone,
and no rezoning is required.
WHAT THE REGISTERING PROPERTY
INDICATORS MEASURE
Procedures to legally transfer title on
immovable property (number)
Preregistration (for example, checking for liens,
notarizing sales agreement, paying property
transfer taxes)
Registration in the economy’s largest business
city
Postregistration (for example, filing title with
the municipality)
Time required to complete each procedure
(calendar days)
Does not include time spent gathering
information
Each procedure starts on a separate day
Procedure completed once final document is
received
No prior contact with officials
Cost required to complete each procedure
(% of property value)
Official costs only, no bribes
No value added or capital gains taxes included

• Has no mortgages attached and has been
under the same ownership for the past 10
years.
• Consists of 557.4 square meters (6,000 square
feet) of land and a 10 -year -old, 2 -story
warehouse of 929 s quare meters (10,000
square feet). The warehouse is in good
condition and complies with all safety
standards, building codes and legal
requirements. The property will be transferred
in its entirety.

39 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
Where does the economy stand today ?
What does it take to complete a property transfer in
Comoros? According to data collected by Doing
Business, registering property the re requires 4 procedures, takes 30 days and costs 10.5% of the
property value (figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 What it takes t o register property in Comoros

Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. For more information on the methodology of
the registering property indicator s, see the Doing Business website (https://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the
procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter.
Source: Doing Business database.

40 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
Globally, Comoros stands at 77 in the ranking of 185
economies on the ease of registering property (figure
5. 2). The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful

information for assessing how easy it is for an
entrepreneur in Comoros to transfer property.
Figure 5.2 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of registering property

Source: Doing Business database.

41 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to register property in Comoros
today, data over time show which aspects of the process have changed
—and which have not (table 5.1).
That can help identify where the potential for
improvement is greatest.

Table 5.1 The ease of registering property in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 89 77
Procedures
(number) n.a. 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Time (days) n.a. 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Cost (% of property
value) n.a. 13.3 16.6 16.6 16.6 16.5 16.5 16.5 10.5
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addit ion of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see
the data notes.
Source: Doing Business database.

42 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies that over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the procedures,
time or cost required to complete a property transfer (figure 5.3). These benchmarks help show what is
possible in making it easier to
register property. And
changes in region al averages can show where
Comoros is keeping up —and where it is falling behind.

Figure 5.3 Has registering property become easier over time?
Procedures (number)

Time (days)

43 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
Cost (% of property value)

Source: Doing Business dat abase.

44 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
Economies worldwide have been making it easier for
entrepreneurs to register and transfer property —such
as by computerizing land registries, introducing time
limits for procedures and setting low fixed fees. Many have cut the time required substantially
—enabling
buyers to use or mortgage their property earlier. What
property registration reforms has Doing Business
recorded in Comoros (table 5.2)?

Table 5.2 How has Comoros made registering property easier —or not?
By Doing Bus iness report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 The Comoros made it easier to transfer property by reducing
the property transfer tax.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business
reports for these years, available at ht tp://www.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

45 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

REGISTERING PROPERTY
What are the details?
The indicators reported here are based on a set of
specific procedures —the steps that a buyer and
seller must complete to transfer the property to the
buyer’s name —identified by Doing Business
through information collected from local property
lawyers, notaries and property registries. These
procedures are those that apply to a transaction
matching the standard assumptions used by Doing
Business in colle cting the data (see the section in
this chapter on what the indicators cover).
STANDARD PROPERTY TRANSFER
City: Moroni
Property Value: KMF 14,319,774
The procedures, along with the associated time and
cost, are summarized below.
Summary of procedures for registering property in Comoros —and the time and cost
No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
1
Title search at the Service des Domaines

Parties should conduct a search of the title at the Service des Domaines
to check the ownersh ip and any encumbrances or liens.

3 – 4 days no cost
2
Buyer and his topographer visit the property to survey and see that
the title description matches the property

This is not a mandatory Procedure, but it is standard practice for buyers.
Topographers are in high demand, which accounts for the delay. They
are often hired from the Service des Domaines. During the survey, the
topographer and buyer may also consult with the neighbors of the
property to verify the owner and limits.

21 days approx. 40,00 0 KMF
3
Draft and notarize the sale purchase agreement

This is not a mandatory Procedure but it is standard practice. The
contract can be written by anyone. The parties can write it themselves if
they want but companies normally contract a lawyer to draf t it. Official
notary fee schedule is as follows:

•Up to 400,000: fixed fee off 20,000 KM F
•5 %: Transaction 400,001 – 3.000,000 KMF
•4 %: Transaction 3.000,001 – 8.000,000 KMF
•3 %: Transaction 8.000,001 – 15.000,000 KMF
•2 %: Transaction 15.000,001 – 25.000,000 KMF
•1 %: Transaction over 25.000,001 KMF

4 days
1% of the actual
property value (legal
fees)
4
Register the sale purchase agreement with the Service des Domaines

The Service des Domaines will record the transfer in their books and
offi cially change the name on the existing title to that of the buyer.
1 day
9% transfer tax on
the declared price +
33,000F registration
fees + 500F per

46 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure Time to
complete Cost to complete
page stamp duty (4
pages)
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
Source: Doing Business database.

47 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
Two types of frameworks can facilitate access to
credit and improve its allocation: credit information
systems and the legal rights of borrowers and
lenders in collateral and bankruptcy laws . Credit
information systems enable lend ers to view a
potential borrower’s financial history (positive or
negative) —valuable information to consider when
assessing risk. And they permit borrowers to
establish a good credit history that will allow easier
access to credit. Sound collateral laws en able
businesses to use their assets, especially movable
property, as security to generate capital — while
strong creditors’ rights have been associated with
higher ratios of private sector credit to GDP.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business assesses the sharing of credit
information and the legal rights of borrowers and
lenders with respect to secured transactions
through 2 sets of indicators. The depth of credit
information index measures rules and practices
affecting the coverage, scope and accessib ility of
credit information available through a public credit
registry or a private credit bureau. The strength of
legal rights index measures whether certain features
that facilitate lending exist within the applicable
collateral and bankruptcy laws. Doing Business uses
case scenarios to determine the scope of the
secured transactions system, involving a secured
borrower and a secured lender and examining legal
restrictions on the use of movable collateral. These
scenarios assume that the borrower:
• Is a pr ivate, limited liability company.
• Has its headquarters and only base of
operations in the largest business city.

WHAT THE GETTING CREDIT INDICATORS
MEASURE
Strength of legal rights index (0 –10)
Protection of rights of borrowers and lenders
through collateral laws
Protection of secured creditors’ rights through
bankruptcy laws
Depth of credit information index (0 –6)
Scope and accessibility of credit information
distributed by public credit registries and
private credit bureaus
Public credit registry coverage (% of adults)
Number of individuals and firms listed in
public credit registry as percentage of adult
population
Private credit bureau coverage (% of adults)
Number of individuals and firms listed in
largest private credit bureau as percentage of
adult population

• Has 100 employees.
• Is 100% domestically owned, as is the lender.
The ranking on the ease of getting credit is based on
the percentile rankings on the sum of its component
indicators: the depth of credit information index and
the streng th of legal rights index.

48 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
Where does the economy stand today?
How well do the credit information system and
collateral and bankruptcy laws in Comoros facilitate
access to credit? The economy has a score of 0 on the
depth of credit informa tion index and a score of 6 on
the strength of legal rights index (see the summary of
scoring at the end of this chapter for details). Higher
scores indicate more credit information and stronger
legal rights for borrowers and lenders. Globally, Comoros sta
nds at 154 in the ranking of 185
economies on the ease of getting credit (figure 6.1).
The rankings for comparator economies and the
regional average ranking provide other useful
information for assessing how well regulations and
institutions in Comoros su pport lending and
borrowing.

Figure 6.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of getting credit

Source: Doing Business database.

49 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
wel l the credit information system and collateral and
bankruptcy laws in Comoros support lending and
borrowing today, data over time can help show where institutions and regulations have been strengthened
—
and where they have not (table 6.1). That can help
ide ntify where the potential for improvement is
greatest.

Table 6.1 The ease of getting credit in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. ..
.. .. .. .. 152 154
Strength of legal rights
index (0 -10) n.a. 3 3 3 3 3 3 6 6
Depth of credit
information index (0 -6) n.a. 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
Public registry
coverage (% of adults) n.a. n.a. 0.0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Private bureau
coverage (% of adults) n.a. n.a. 0.0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
Source: Doing Business database.

50 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
One way to put an economy’s score on the getting
credit indicators into context is to see where the
economy stands i n the distribution of scores across
economies. Figure 6.2 highlights the score on the
strength of legal rights index for Comoros in 2012 and shows the number of economies with this
score in
2012 as well as the regional average score . Figure 6.3
shows the s ame thing for the depth of credit
information index.

Figure 6.2 How strong are legal rights for borrowers
and lenders? Figure 6.3 How much
credit information is shared —
and how widely ?
Number of economies with each score on strength of legal
rights ind ex (0–10), 2012

Note: Higher scores indicate that collateral and bankruptcy
laws are better designed to facilitate access to credit.
Source: Doing Business database. Number of economies with each score on depth of cred
it
information index (0– 6), 2012
N ote: Higher scores indicate the availability of more credit
information, from either a public credit registry or a private
credit bureau, to facilitate lending decisions. Regional
averages for the depth of credit information index exclude
economies with no public registry or private bureau.
Source: Doing Business database.

51 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
When economies strengthen the legal rights of lenders
and borrowers under collateral and bankruptcy laws,
and increase the scope, coverage and accessibility of credit in
formation, they can increase entrepreneurs’
access to credit. What credit reforms has Doing
Business recorded in Comoros (table 6.2)?

Table 6.2 How has Comoros made getting credit easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012
Access to credit in Comoros was improved through
amendment s to the OHADA Uniform Act on Secured
Transactions that broaden the range of assets that can be used
as collateral (including future assets), extend the security
interest to the proceeds of the original asset and introduce the
possibility of out -of-court e nforcement.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

52 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

GETTING CREDIT
What are the details?

The getting credit indicators reported here for
Comoros are based on detailed information collected
in that economy. The data on credit information
sharing are collected through a survey of a public
credit registry or private credit bureau (if one exists).
To construct the depth of credit information index, a
score of 1 is assigned for each of 6 features of the
public credit registry or private credit bureau (see
summary of scoring below). The data on the legal rights
of borrowers and lenders
are gathered through a survey of financial lawyers and
verified through analysis of laws and regulations as
well as public sources of information on collateral and
bankruptcy laws. For the strength of legal rights index,
a score of 1 is assigned for each of 8 aspects related to
legal rights in collateral law and 2 aspects in
bankruptcy law.
Summary of scoring for the getting credit indicators in Comoros
Indicator Comoros Sub-Saharan
Africa average
OECD high income
average
Streng th of legal rights index (0 -10) 6 6 7
Depth of credit information index (0 -6) 0 3 5
Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 7.7 31.5
Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 25.6 74.6
Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “O ECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed
once. Regional averages for the depth of credit information index exclude economies with no public registry or private bureau .
Regional averages for the public registry coverage exclude economies with no public registry. Regional averages for the private
bureau coverage exclude ec onomies with no private bureau.

Strength of legal rights index (0 –10) Index score: 6
Can any business use movable assets as collateral while keeping possession of the a ssets;
and any financial institution accept such assets as collateral ? Yes
Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in a single category
of movable assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? Yes
Does t he law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in substantially all of
its assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? Yes
May a security right extend to future or after -acquired assets, and may it extend
automaticall y to the products, proceeds or replacements of the original assets ? Yes
Is a general description of debts and obligations permitted in collateral agreements; can all
types of debts and obligations be secured between parties; and can the collateral agreem ent
include a maximum amount for which the assets are encumbered?
Yes
Is a collateral registry in operation, that is unified geographically and by asset type, with an
electronic database indexed by debtor's names? No

53 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Strength of legal rights index (0 –10) Index score: 6
Are secured creditors paid first (i. e. before general tax claims and employee claims) when a
debtor defaults outside an insolvency procedure? No
Are secured creditors paid first (i.e. before general tax claims and employee claims) when a
business is liquidated? No
Are secured creditors eit her not subject to an automatic stay or moratorium on enforcement
procedures when a debtor enters a court -supervised reorganization procedure, or the law
provides secured creditors with grounds for relief from an automatic stay or
No
Does the law allow pa rties to agree in a collateral agreement that the lender may enforce its
security right out of court, at the time a security interest is created? Yes

Depth of credit information index (0 –6) Private credit
bureau
Public credit
registry Index score: 0
A re data on both firms and individuals distributed? No No 0
Are both positive and negative data distributed? No No 0
Does the registry distribute credit information from
retailers, trade creditors or utility companies as well
as financial institutions?
No No 0
Are more than 2 years of historical credit information
distributed? No No 0
Is data on all loans below 1% of income per capita
distributed? No No 0
Is it guaranteed by law that borrowers can inspect
their data in the largest credit registry? No No 0
Note: An economy receives a score of 1 if there is a "yes" to either private bureau or public registry.

Coverage Private credit bureau Public credit registry
Number of firms 0 0
Number of individuals 0 0
Source: Doing Business database.

54 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTE CTING INVESTORS
Investor protections matter for the ability of
companies to raise the capital they need to grow,
innovate, diversify and compete. If the laws do not
provide such protections, investors may be reluctant
to invest unless they become the con trolling
shareholders. Strong regulations clearly define
related -party transactions, promote clear and efficient
disclosure requirements, require shareholder
participation in major decisions of the company and
set clear standards of accountability for comp any
insiders.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business measures the strength of minority
shareholder protections against directors’ use of
corporate assets for personal gain —or self -dealing.
The indicators distinguish 3 dimensions of investor
protecti ons: transparency of related -party
transactions (extent of disclosure index), liability for
self -dealing (extent of director liability index) and
shareholders’ ability to sue officers and directors for
misconduct (ease of shareholder suits index). The
rank ing on the strength of investor protection index is
the simple average of the percentile rankings on
these 3 indices. To make the data comparable across
economies, a case study uses several assumptions
about the business and the transaction.
The business ( Buyer):
• Is a publicly traded corporation listed on the
economy’s most important stock exchange (or
at least a large private company with multiple
shareholders).
• Has a board of directors and a chief executive
officer (CEO) who may legally act on behalf of
B uyer where permitted, even if this is not
specifically required by law.
The transaction involves the following details:
• Mr. James, a director and the majority
shareholder of the company, proposes that

WHAT THE PROTECTING INVESTORS
INDICATORS MEASURE
Extent of disclosure index (0 –10)
Who can approve related -party transactions
Disclosure requirements in case of related –
party transactions
Extent of director liability index (0 –10)
Ability of shareholders to hold interested
parties and members of the ap proving body
liable in case of related-party transactions
Available legal remedies (damages, repayment
of profits, fines, imprisonment and rescission
of the transaction)
Ability of shareholders to sue directly or
derivatively
Ease of shareholder suits inde x (0–10)
Access to internal corporate documents
(directly or through a government inspector)
Documents and information available during
trial
Strength of investor protection index (0 –10)
Simple average of the extent of disclosure,
extent of director liability and ease of
shareholder suits indices

the company purchase used trucks from another
company he owns.
• The price is higher than the going price for used
trucks, but the transaction goes forward.
• All required approvals are obtained, and all
required dis closures made, though the transaction
is prejudicial to Buyer.
• Shareholders sue the interested parties and the
members of the board of directors.

55 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
Where does the economy stand today?
How strong are investor protections in Comoros? Th e
economy has a score of 4.0 on the strength of investor
protection index, with a higher score indicating
stronger protections (see the summary of scoring at
the end of this chapter for details).
Globally, Comoros stands at 139 in the ranking of 185
econo mies on the strength of investor protection index (figure 7.1). While the indicator does not
measure all aspects related to the protection of
minority investors, a higher ranking does indicate that
an economy’s regulations offer stronger investor
protectio
ns against self -dealing in the areas measured.

Figure 7.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the strength of investor protection index

S ource: Doing Business database.

56 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
What are the changes over time?
While the most rec ent Doing Business data reflect how
well regulations in Comoros protect minority investors
today, data over time show whether the protections
have been strengthened (table 7.1). And the global ranking on the strength of investor protection index
over time shows whether the economy is slipping
behind other economies in investor protections
—or
surpassing them.

Table 7.1 The strength of investor protections in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. 136 139
Extent of disclosure
index (0 -10) 6 6
6 6 6 6 6 6
Extent of director
liability index (0 –
10)
1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1
Ease of shareholder
suits index (0 -10) 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Strength of
investor protection
index (0 -10)
4.0 4.0
4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
Source: Doing Business database.

57 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
One way to put an economy’s scores on the protecting
investors indicators into context is to see where the
economy stands in the distribution of scores across
economies. Figure 7 .2 highlights the score on the
extent of disclosure index for Comoros in 2012 and shows the number of economies with this
score in
2012 as well as the regional average sco re. Figure 7.3
shows the same thing for the extent of director liability
index , and figure 7.4 for the ease of shareholder suits
index.

Figure 7.2 How strong are disclos ure requirements ?
Number of economies with each score on extent of
disclosure index (0 –10), 2012

Note: Higher scores indicate greater disclosure.
Source: Doing Business database.
Figure 7.3 How strong is the liability regime for directors?
Number of economies with each score on extent of
director liability index (0–10), 2012

Note: Higher scores indicate greater liability of directors.
No economy receives a score of 10 on the extent of
director liability index.
Source: Doing Business database.

58 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
Figure 7.4 How easy is access to internal corporate documents?
Number of economies with each score on ease of
shareholder suits index (0– 10), 2012

Note: Higher scores indicate greater powers of shareholders
to challenge the transaction.
Source: Doing Business database.

59 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
The scores recorded over time for Comoros on the
strength of investor protection index may also be
revealing (figure 7. 5). Equally interesting may be the changes over time in the
regional average score on
this index.

Figure 7.5 Have investor protections become stronger over time?
Str ength of investor protection index (0 –10)

Note: The higher the score, the stronger the investor protections.
Source: Doing Business database.

60 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
Economies with the strongest protections of minority
investors from self-dealing require more disclosure
and define clear duties for directors. They also have
well -functioning courts and up -to -date procedural
rules that give minority investors the means to prove
their case and obtain a judgment within a reasonable time. So reforms to strengthe
n investor protections
may move ahead on different fronts —such as through
new or amended company laws or civil procedure
rules. What investor protection reforms has Doing
Business recorded in Comoros (table 7.2)?

Table 7.2 How has Comoros strengthened i nvestor protections—or not?
By Doing Business report year

DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured b y Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for
these years, available at https://w ww.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

61 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PROTECTING INVESTORS
What are the details?
The protecting investors indicators reported here for
Comoros are based on detailed information collected
through a survey of corporate and securities lawye rs as
well as on securities regulations, company laws and
court rules of evidence. To construct the extent of
disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits indices, a score is assigned for each
of a range of conditions relating to disclosure,
director
liability and shareholder suits in a standard case study
transaction (see the notes at the end of this chapter).
The summary below shows the details underlying the
scores for Comoros.
Summary of scoring for the protecting investors indicators in Comoros
Indicator Comoros Sub-Saharan
Africa average
OECD high income
average
Extent of disclosure index (0 -10) 6 5 6
Extent of director liability index (0 -10) 1 4 5
Ease of shareholder suits index (0 -10) 5 5 7
Strength of investor protection index (0 -10) 4.0 4.5 6.1
Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed
once.

Score Score description
Extent of disclosure index (0 -10) 6
What corporate body provi des legally sufficient
approval for the transaction? 3 Both board of directors and
shareholders meeting and Mr. James
is not allowed to vote

Whether disclosure of the conflict of interest by Mr.
James to the board of directors is required? 1 Existence of a conflict without any
specifics

Whether immediate disclosure of the transaction to
the public and/or shareholders is required? 0 No disclosure obligation
Whether disclosure of the transaction in published
periodic filings (annual reports) is required? 2 Disclosure on the transaction and Mr.
James' conflict of interest

Whether an external body must review the terms of
the transaction before it takes place? 0 No
Extent of director liability index (0 -10) 1
Whether shareholders can sue directly or deriva tively
for the damage that the Buyer-Seller transaction
causes to the company?
1 Yes

62 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Score Score description
Whether shareholders can hold Mr. James liable for
the damage that the Buyer -Seller transaction causes
to the company?
0 Not liable
Whether shareholders can hold members of the
approving body liable for the damage that the Buyer –
Seller transaction causes to the company?
0 Not liable
Whether a court can void the transaction upon a
successful claim by a shareholder plaintiff? 0 Not possible or only in case of Seller's
frau
d or bad faith
Whether Mr. James pays damages for the harm
caused to the company upon a successful claim by
the shareholder plaintiff?
0 No
Whether Mr. James repays profits made from the
transaction upon a successful claim by the
shareholder plaintiff?
0 No
Whether fines and imprisonment can be applied
against Mr. James? 0 No
Ease of shareholder suits index (0 -10) 5
Whether shareholders owning 10% or less of Buyer's
shares can inspect transaction documents before
filing suit?
0 No
Whether shareholder s owning 10% or less of Buyer's
shares can request an inspector to investigate the
transaction?
0 No
Whether the plaintiff can obtain any documents from
the defendant and witnesses during trial? 4 Any information that may lead to the
discovery of relevant
information
Whether the plaintiff can request categories of
documents from the defendant without identifying
specific ones?
0 No
Whether the plaintiff can directly question the
defendant and witnesses during trial? 1 Yes
Whether the level of proof requ ired for civil suits is
lower than that of criminal cases? 0 No
Strength of investor protection index (0 -10) 4.0
Source: Doing Business database.

63 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES

Taxes are essential. They fund the public amenities,
infrastructure and services that are crucial for a
properly functioning economy. But the level of tax
rates needs to be carefully chosen —and needless
complexity in tax rules avoided. According to
Doing Business data, in economies where it is more
difficult and costly to pay taxes, larger sha res of
economic activity end up in the informal sector —
where businesses pay no taxes at all.
What do the indicators cover?
Using a case scenario, Doing Business measures
the taxes and mandatory contributions that a
medium -size company must pay in a given year as
well as the administrative burden of paying taxes
and contributions. This case scenario uses a set of
financial statements and assumptions about
transactions made over the year. Information is
also compiled on the frequency of filing and
payments a s well as time taken to comply with tax
laws. The ranking on the ease of paying taxes is
the simple average of the percentile rankings on
its component indicators: number of annual
payments, time and total tax rate , with a threshold
being applied to the to tal tax rate. 1 To make the
data comparable across economies, several
assumptions about the business and the taxes and
contributions are used.
• TaxpayerCo is a medium -size business that
started operations on January 1, 20 10.
• The business starts from the sam e financial
position in each economy. All the taxes
and mandatory contributions paid during
the second year of operation are recorded.
• Taxes and mandatory contributions are
measured at all levels of government.

• Taxes and mandatory contributions include
corporate income tax, turnover tax and all
labor taxes and contributions paid by the
company.
• A range of standard deductions and
exemptions are also recorded.
WHAT THE PAYING TAXES INDICATORS
MEASURE
Tax payments for a manufacturing company
in 2011 (number per year adjusted for
electronic or joint filing and payment)
Total number of taxes and contributions paid,
including consumption taxes (value added tax,
sales tax or goods and service tax)
Method and frequency of filing and payment
Time required to comply with 3 major taxes
(hours per year)
Collecting information and computing the tax
payable
Completing tax return forms, filing with
proper agencies
Arranging payment or withholding
Preparing separate tax accounting books, if
required
Total tax rate (% of profit before all taxes )
Profit or corporate income tax
Social contributions and labor taxes paid by
the employer
Property and property transfer taxes
Dividend, capital gains and financial
transactions taxes
Waste collection, vehicle, road and other taxes
1 The threshold is defined as the highest total tax rate among the top 15% of economies in the ranking o n the total tax rate. It is calculated and
adjusted on a yea rly basis. The threshold is not based on any economic theory of an “optimal tax rate” that minimizes distortions or maximizes
efficiency in the tax system of an economy overall. Instead, it is mainly empirical in nature, set at the lower end of the distrib ution of tax rates
levied on medium -size enterprises in the manufacturing sector as observed through the paying taxes indicators. This reduces the bias in the
indicators toward economies that do not need to levy significant taxes on companies like the Doing Business standardized case study company
because they raise public revenue in other ways —for example, through taxes on foreign companies, through taxes on sectors other than
manufacturing or from natural resources (all of which are outside the scope of t he methodology). This year’s threshold is 25.7%.

64 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES
Where does the economy stand today?
What is the administrative burden of complying with
taxes in Comoros —and how much do firms pay in
taxes? On average, firms make 33 tax payments a year,
spend 100 hours a year filing, preparing and paying
taxes and pay total taxes amounting to 217.9% of
profit (see the summary at the end of this chapter for
details). Globally, Comoros stands at 114 in the ranking of
185
economies on the ease of paying taxes (figure 8.1). The
rankings for comparator economies and the regional
average ranking provide other useful information for
assessing the tax compliance burden for businesses in
Comoros.
Figure 8.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of paying taxes

Note: DB2013 rankings r eflect changes to the methodology. For all economies with a total tax rate below the threshold of
25.7% applied in DB2013 , the total tax rate is set at 25.7% for the purpose of calculating the ranking on the ease of paying
taxes .
Source: Doing Business dat abase.

65 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to comply with tax rules in
Comoros today, data over time show which aspects of the process have changed
— and which have not
(table 8.1). That can help identify where the potential
for easing tax compliance is greatest.
Table 8.1 The ease of paying taxes in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. ..
.. .. .. .. 115 114
Payments (number per
year) 33 33
33 33 33 33 33 33
Time (hours per year) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Total tax rate (% profit) 217.9 217.9
217.9 217.9 217.9 217.9 217.9 217.9
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malt a) to the sample this year. DB2013 rankings reflect changes to the
methodology. For all economies with a total tax rate below the threshold of 25.7% applied in DB2013, the total tax rate is set at
25.7% for the purpose of calculating the ranking on the eas e of paying taxes.
Source: Doing Business database.

66 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies that over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the number of
payments or the time required to prepare and file
taxes (figure 8.2). These benchmarks help show what is possible in
easing the administrative burden of tax
compliance. And changes in regional averages can
show where Comoros is keeping up —and where it is
falling behind.

Figure 8.2 Has paying t axes become easier over time?
Payments (number per year)

Time (hours per year)

67 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES

Total tax rate (% of profit)

Source: Doing Business database.

68 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES
Economies around the world have made paying taxes
faster and easier for busines ses—such as by
consolidating filings, reducing the frequency of
payments or offering electronic filing and payment.
Many have lowered tax rates. Changes have brought concrete results. Some economies simplifying tax
payment and reducing rates have seen tax revenue
rise. What tax reforms has
Doing Business recorded in
Comoros (table 8.2)?

Table 8.2 How has Comoros made paying taxes easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For informati on on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

69 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

PAYING TAXES
What are the details?
The indicators reported here for Comoros are
ba sed on a standard set of taxes and contributions
that would be paid by the case study company
used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see
the section in this chapter on what the indicators
cover). Tax practitioners are asked to review
standard finan cial statements as well as a standard
list of transactions that the company completed
during the year. Respondents are asked how much
in taxes and mandatory contributions the business
must pay and what the process is for doing so.
LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY
City: Moroni
The taxes and contributions paid are listed in the
summary below, along with the associated number of
payments, time and tax rate.
Summary of tax rates and administrative burden in Comoros
Indicator Comoros Sub-Saharan
Africa a verage
OECD high income
average
Payments (number per year) 33 39 12
Time (hours per year) 100 319 176
Profit tax (%) 31.4 19.0 15.2
Labor tax and contributions (%) 0.0 13.3 23.8
Other taxes (%) 186.5 25.5 3.7
Total tax rate (% profit) 217.9 57.8 42.7
Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed
once.

Tax or mandatory
contribution
Payments
(number)
Notes on
payments
Time
(hours)
Statutory
tax rate Tax base
Total tax
rate (% of
profit)
Notes on
total tax rate
Consumption tax 12 48 10% sales 176.8
Corporate income tax 2 4 35% taxable
profit 29.3

Patent tax 1 0 10% fixed fee 7
Vehicle tax 1 0 KMF 25,000 per ton 2.5
Capital gains tax 1 0 20% capital
g ains 2

70 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Tax or mandatory
contribution
Payments
(number)
Notes on
payments
Time
(hours)
Statutory
tax rate Tax base
Total tax
rate (% of
profit)
Notes on
total tax rate
Motor vehicle tax 1 0 various rates 0.2
Insurance tax 1 0 3% insurance
premium 0.1

Fuel tax 1 0 various rates 0 not collected
Stamp duty 1 0 KMF 500 per
page 0 small amount
Payroll tax – employee 12 withheld 48 3% 0 withheld
Totals 33 100 217.9
Source: Doing Business database.

71 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDE RS
In today’s globalized world, making trade between
economies easier is increasingly important for
business. Excessive document requirements,
burdensome customs procedures, ineffici ent port
operations and inadequate infrastructure all lead to
extra costs and delays for exporters and importers,
stifling trade potential. Research shows that
exporters in developing countries gain more from
a 10% drop in their trading costs than from a
similar reduction in the tariffs applied to their
products in global markets.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business measures the time and cost
(excluding tariffs and the time and cost for sea
transport ) associated with exporting and importing
a stan dard shipment of goods by sea transport,
and the number of documents necessary to
complete the transaction. The indicators cover
procedural requirements such as documentation
requirements and procedures at customs and other
regulatory agencies as well as a t the port. They also
cover trade logistics, including the time and cost of
inland transport to the largest business city. The
ranking on the ease of trading across borders is
the simple average of the percentile rankings on its
component indicators: docum ents, time and cost
to export and import.
To make the data comparable across economies,
Doing Business uses several assumptions about the
business and the traded goods.
The business:
• Is of medium size and employs 60 people.
• Is located in the periurban area of the
economy’s largest business city.
• Is a private, limited liability company,
domestically owned, formally registered
and operating under commercial laws and
regulations of the economy.
The traded goods:
• Are not hazardous nor do they include
military i tems.
WHAT THE TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
INDICATORS MEASURE
Documents required to export and import
(number)
Bank documents
Customs clearance documents
Port and terminal handling documents
Transport documents
Time required to export and import (days)
Obtaining , filling out and submitting all the
documents
Inland transport and handling
Customs clearance and inspections
Port and terminal handling
Does not include sea transport time
Cost required to export and import (US$ per
container)
All documentation
Inland transport and handling
Customs clearance and inspections
Port and terminal handling
Official costs only, no bribes

• Do not require refrigeration or any other
special environment.
• Do not require any special phytosanitary or
environmental safety sta ndards other than
accepted international standards.
• Are one of the economy’s leading export or
import products.
• Are transported in a dry -cargo, 20 -foot full
container load.

72 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
Where does the economy stand today?
What does it take to export or import in Comoros?
According to data collected by Doing Business ,
exporting a standard container of goods requires 9
documents, takes 31 days and costs $ 1295. Importing
the same container of goods requires 10 documents,
takes 26 days and costs $1295 (see the summary of
procedures and documents at the end of this chapter
for details). Globally, Comoros stands at 146 in the ranking of
185
economies on the ease of trading across borders
(figure 9.1). The rankings for comparator economies
and the r egional average ranking provide other useful
information for assessing how easy it is for a business
in Comoros to export and import goods.

Figure 9.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of trading across borders

Source: Doing Busin ess database.

73 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
What are the changes over time?

While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to export or import in Comoros
today, data over time show which aspects of the process have changed
—and which have not (table 9.1).
That can help identify where the potential for
improvement is greatest.

Table 9.1 The ease of trading across borders in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. ..
.. .. .. .. 143 146
Documents to export
(number) 9 9
9 9 9 9 9 9
Time to export (days) 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 31
Cost to export (US$ per
container) 1,105 1,105
1,105 1,207 1,207 1,207 1,207 1,295
Documents to import
(number) 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Time to import (days) 26 26
26 26 26 26 26 26
Cost to import (US$ per
container) 1,108 1,108
1,108 1,191 1,191 1,191 1,191 1,295
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings s hown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and
the addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
Source: Doing Business database.

74 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies that over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the documents,
time or cost required to export or import (figure 9.2). These
benchmarks help show what is possible in
making it easier to trade across borders. And changes
in regional averages can show where Comoros is
keeping up —and where it is falling behind.

Figure 9.2 Has trading across borders become easier over time?
Documents to export (number)

Time to export (days)

75 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
Cost to export (US$ per container)

Documents to import (number)

76 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
Time to import (days)

Cost to import (US$ per container)

Source: Doing Business database.

77 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
In economies around the world, trading across borders
as measured by Doing Business has become faster and
easier over the years. Governments have introduced
tools to facilitate trade —including single windows,
risk- based inspections and electronic da ta interchange systems.
These changes help improve the trading
environment and boost firms’ international
competitiveness. What trade reforms has Doing
Business recorded in Comoros (table 9.2)?
Table 9.2 How has Comoros made trading across borders easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.or g.
Source: Doing Business database.

78 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

TRADING ACROSS BORDERS
What are the details?

The indicators reported here for Comoros are
based on a set of specific procedural requirements
for trading a standard shipment of goods by ocean
transport (see the section in this chapter on what
the indicators cover). Information on the
procedures as well as the required documents and
the time and cost to complete each procedure is
collected from local freight forwarders, shipping
lines, customs brokers, port officials and banks.

LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY
City: Moroni
The procedural requirements, and the associated time
and cost, for exporting and importing a standard
shipment of goods are listed in the summary below,
along with the required documents.
Summar y of procedures and documents for trading across borders in Comoros
Indicator Comoros Sub -Saharan
Africa average
OECD high income
average
Documents to export (number) 9 8 4
Time to export (days) 31 31 10
Cost to export (US$ per container) 1,295 1,990 1,028
Documents to import (number) 10 9 5
Time to import (days) 26 37 10
Cost to import (US$ per container) 1,295 2,567 1,080
Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed
once.

Procedures to export Time (days) Cost (US$)
Documents preparation 15 265
Customs clearance and technical control 5 150
Ports and terminal handling 8 630
Inland transportation and handling 3 250
Totals 31 1,295

Procedures to import Time (days) Cost (US$)
Documents preparation 13 265
Customs clearance and technical control 2 150

79 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

Procedures to import Time (days) Cost (US$)
Ports and terminal handling 10 630
Inland transportation and handling 1 250
Totals 26 1,295

Documents to export
Bill of lading
Cargo release order
Certificate of origin
Commercial invoice
Customs export declaration
Inspection report
Packing list
Technical standard/health certificate
Terminal handling receipts
Source: Doing Business database.
Documents to import
Bill of lading
Certificate of origin
Commercial invoice
Customs import declaration
Delivery order
Foreign exchange authorization
Packing list
Pre
-shipment inspection clean report of findings
Tax certificate
Terminal handling receipts

80 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS

Well -functioning courts help businesses expand
their network and markets. Without effective
contract enforcement, people might well do
business only with family, friends and others with
whom they have established relationships. Where
contract enforcement is efficient, firms are more
likely to engage with new borrowers or customers,
and they have greater access to credit.
What do the indicators cover?
Doing Business measures the efficiency of the
judicial system in resolving a commercial disput e
before local courts. Following the step -by -step
evolution of a standardized case study, it collects
data relating to the time, cost and procedural
complexity of resolving a commercial lawsuit. The
ranking on the ease of enforcing contracts is the
simple average of the percentile rankings on its
component indicators: procedures, time and cost.
The dispute in the case study involves the breach
of a sales contract between 2 domestic businesses.
The case study assumes that the court hears an
expert on the qu ality of the goods in dispute. This
distinguishes the case from simple debt
enforcement. To make the data comparable across
economies, Doing Business uses several
assumptions about the case:
• The seller and buyer are located in the
economy’s largest busines s city.
• The buyer orders custom -made goods,
then fails to pay.
• The seller sues the buyer before a
competent court.
• The value of the claim is 200% of income
per capita.
• The seller requests a pretrial attachment to
secure the claim.

WHAT THE ENFORCING CON TRACTS
INDICATORS MEASURE
Procedures to enforce a contract through
the courts (number)
Any interaction between the parties in a
commercial dispute, or between them and
the judge or court officer
Steps to file and serve the case
Steps for trial and judgment
Steps to enforce the judgment
Time required to complete procedures
(calendar days)
Time to file and serve the case
Time for trial and obtaining judgment
Time to enforce the judgment
Cost required to complete procedures (% of
claim)
No bribes
Average attorney fees
Court costs
Enforcement costs

• The dispute on the quality of the goods
requires an expert opinion.
• The judge decides in favor of the seller; there
is no appeal.
• The seller enforces the judgment through a
public sale of the buyer’s mova ble assets.

81 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
Where does the economy stand today?
How efficient is the process of resolving a commercial
dispute through the courts in Comoros? According to
data collected by Doing Business, enforcing a contract
takes 506 days, costs 89.4% of the value of the claim
and requires 43 procedures (see the summary at the
end of this chapter for details). Globally, Comoros stands at 159 in the ranking of
185
economies on the ease of enforcing contracts (figure
10.1). The rankings for comparat or economies and the
regional average ranking provide other useful
benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of contract
enforcement in Comoros.

Figure 10.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of enforcing contracts
Source: Doing Business database.

82 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how
easy (or difficult) it is to enforce a contract in Comoros
today, data on the underlying indicators over time help identify which ar
eas have changed and where the
potential for improvement is greatest (table 10.1 ).

Table 10.1 The ease of enforcing contracts in Comoros over time
By Doing Business report year
Indicator DB2004 DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 158 159
Time (days) n.a. n.a. 506 506
506 506 506 506 506 506
Cost (% of claim) n.a. n.a. 89.4 89.4
89.4 89.4 89.4 89.4 89.4 89.4
Procedures (number) n.a. n.a. 43 43
43 43 43 43 43 43
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last year’s
published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of
2 economies (Ba rbados and Malta) to the sample this year.
Source: Doing Business database.

83 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
Equally helpful may be the benchmarks provided by
the economies that over time have had the best
performance regionally or globally on the number of
steps, ti me or cost required to enforce a contract
through the courts (figure 10.2). The se benchmarks help show what is possible in
improving the efficiency
of contract enforcement . And changes in regional
averages can show where Comoros is keeping up —
and where it is falling behind.

Figure 10.2 Has enforcing contracts become easier over time?
Time (days)

Cost (% of claim)

84 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
Procedures (number)

Source: Doing Business database.

85 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
Economies in all regions have improved c ontract
enforcement in recent years. A judiciary can be
improved in different ways. Higher -income economies
tend to look for ways to enhance efficiency by
introducing new technology. Lower -income economies often work on reducing backlogs by introducing
per
iodic reviews to clear inactive cases from the docket
and by making procedures faster. What reforms
making it easier (or more difficult) to enforce contracts
has Doing Business recorded in Comoros (table 10.2)?

Table 10.2 How has Comoros made enforcing c ontracts easier—or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Do ing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.d oingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

86 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS
What are the details?
The indicators reported here for Comoros are
based on a set of specific procedural steps
required to resolve a standardized commercial
dispute through the courts (see the section in this
chapter on what the indicators cover). These
procedures, and the time and cost of completing
them, are identified through study of the codes of
civil procedure and other court regulations, as well
as through surveys completed by lo cal litigation
lawyers (and, in a quarter of the economies
covered by Doing Business , by judges as well).

COMPETENT COURT
City: Moroni
Court Name: Moroni District Court,
Commercial Section
The procedures for resolving a commercial lawsuit, and
the associated time and cost, are listed in the summary
below.
Summary of procedures for enforcing a contract in Comoros —and the time and cost
Indicator Comoros Sub-Saharan
Africa average
OECD high income
average
Time (days) 506 649 510
Filing and servic e 21
Trial and judgment 425
Enforcement of judgment 60
Cost (% of claim) 89.4 50.1 20.1
Attorney cost (% of claim) 30.1
Court cost (% of claim) 40.2
Enforcement Cost (% of claim) 19.1
Procedures (number) 43 39 31
Number of procedures (w ithout bonus points) 44
Specialized commercial courts -1
Total number of procedures (including bonus
points) 43
Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed
once.

87 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

ENFORCING CONTRACTS

No. Procedure
Filing and service:
1 Plaintiff requests payment: Plaintiff or his lawyer asks Defendant orally or in writing to comply with the contract.
2 Plaintiff’s hiring of lawyer: Plaintiff hires a lawyer to represent him before the court.
* Plaintiff’s filing of summons and complaint: Plaintiff files his summons and complaint with the court, orally or in
writing.
* Plaintiff’s payment of court fees: Plaintiff pays court duties, stamp duties, or any other type of court fee.
3 Registration of court case: The court administration registers the lawsuit or court case. This includes assigning a
reference number to the lawsuit or court case.
* Assignment of court case to a judge: The court case is assigned to a specific judge through a random procedure,
automated system, ruling of an administrative judge, court officer, etc.
4 Court scrutiny of summons and complaint: A judge examines Plaintiff's summons and complaint for formal
requirements.
5 Plaintiff’s request for service: Plaint iff makes a written request to the court that process be served on Defendant.
6 Court order for service: Upon Plaintiff’s request, judge orders process be served on Defendant.
7
Delivery of summons and complaint to person authorized to perform service of process on Defendant: The
judge or a court officer delivers the summons to a summoning office, officer, or authorized person (including
Plaintiff), for service of process on Defendant.
* Mailing of summons and complaint: Court or process server, includin g (private) bailiff, mails summons and
complaint to Defendant.
8 First attempt at physical delivery: A first attempt to physically deliver summons and complaint to Defendant is
successful in the majority of cases.
* Proof of service: Plaintiff submits pr oof of service to court.
* Application for pre -judgment attachment: Plaintiff submits an application in writing for the attachment of
Defendant's property prior to judgment. (see assumption 5)
*
Decision on pre -judgment attachment: The judge decides whet her to grant Plaintiff’s request for pre-judgment
attachment of Defendant’s property and notifies Plaintiff and Defendant of the decision. This step may include
requesting that Plaintiff submit guarantees or bonds to secure Defendant
9 Pre -judgment attach ment.: Defendant's property is attached prior to judgment. Attachment is either physical or
achieved by registering, marking, debiting or separating assets. (see assumption 5)
10 Report on pre-judgment attachment: Court enforcement officer or (private) ba iliff issues and delivers a report on
the attachment of Defendant’s property to the judge. (see assumption 5)

88 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure
11
Hearing on pre -judgment attachment: A hearing takes place to resolve the question of whether Defendant’s
assets can be attached prior to judgment. This process may include the submission of separate summons and
petitions. (see assumption 5)
Trial and judgment:
*
Defendant’s filing of preliminary exemptions: Defendant presents preliminary exemptions to the court.
Preliminary exemptions diff er from answers on the merits of the claim. Examples of preliminary exemptions are
statute of limitations, jurisdictions, etc.
* Plaintiff’s answer to preliminary exemptions: Plaintiff responds to the preliminary exemptions raised by
Defendant.
12
Defendant’s filing of defense or answer to Plaintiff’s claim: Defendant files a written pleading which includes his
defense or answer on the merits of the case. Defendant's written answer may or may not include witness statements,
expert statements, the document s Defendant relies on as evidence and the legal authori
13 Deadline for Plaintiff to answer Defendant's defense or answer: Judge sets the deadline by which Plaintiff will be
allowed to answer Defendant's defense or answer.
14
Plaintiff’s written response to Defendant's defense or answer: Plaintiff responds to Defendant’s defense or
answer with a written pleading. Plaintiff's answer may or may not include a witness statements or expert (witness)
statements.
15
Filing of pleadings: Plaintiff and Defendant file written pleadings and submissions with the court and transmit
copies of the written pleadings or submissions to one another. The pleadings may or may not include witness
statements or expert (witness) statements.
16 Adjournments: Court procedure is d elayed because one or both parties request and obtain an adjournment to
submit written pleadings.
*
Court appointment of independent expert: Judge appoints, either at the parties' request or at his own initiative,
an independent expert to decide whether t he quality of the goods Plaintiff delivered to Defendant is adequate. (see
assumption 6-b of this case)
17 Notification of court-appointment of independent expert: The court notifies both parties that the court is
appointing an independent expert. (see as sumption 6-b of this case)
* Delivery of expert report by court -appointed expert: The independent expert appointed by the court delivers his
or her expert report to the court. (see assumption 6 -b of this case)
18 Request for oral hearing or trial: Plain tiff applies for the date(s) for the oral hearing or trial.
* Setting of date(s) for oral hearing or trial: The judge sets the date(s) for the oral hearing or trial.
19 Preliminary hearing aimed at preparing for the oral hearing: The judge meets the parties to make practical
arrangements for the oral hearing on the merits of the case.
20 Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an adjournment to
prepare for the oral hearing or trial.
21 Oral hearing (prevalent in civil law): The parties argue the merits of the case at an oral hearing before the judge.
Witnesses and a court -appointed independent expert may be heard and questioned at the oral hearing.

89 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure
22 Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an adjournment
during the oral hearing or trial, resulting in an additional or later trial or hearing date.
23 Closing of the evidence period: The court makes the formal decision to close the evidence period.
24 Order for submission of final arguments: The judge sets the deadline for the submission of final factual and legal
arguments.
* Final arguments: The parties present their final factual and legal arguments to the court either by oral presentation
or by a writ ten submission.
25 Judgment date: The judge sets a date for delivery of the judgment.
26 Notification of judgment in court: The parties are notified of the judgment at a court hearing.
27 Writing of judgment: The judge produces a written copy of the judgment.
28 Registration of judgment: The court office registers the judgment after receiving a written copy of the judgment.
29 Court notification of availability of the written judgment: The court notifies the parties that the written
judgment is available at the courthouse.
30 Plaintiff's receipt of a copy of written judgment: Plaintiff receives a copy of the written judgment.
31 Notification of Defendant of judgment: Plaintiff or court formally notifies the Defendant of the judgment. The
appeal period starts to run the day the Defendant is formally notified of the judgment.
32 Appeal period: By law, Defendant has the opportunity to appeal the judgment during a period specified in the law.
Defendant decides not to appeal. Judgment becomes final the day the appeal period ends.
33 Reimbursement by Defendant of Plaintiff's court fees: The judgment obliges Defendant to reimburse Plaintiff for
the court fees Plaintiff has advanced, because Defendant has lost the case.
Enforcement of judgment:
* Plaintif f’s hiring of lawyer: Plaintiff hires a lawyer to enforce the judgment or continues to be represented by a
lawyer during the enforcement of judgment phase.
34 Plaintiff's approaching of court enforcement officer or (private) bailiff to enforce the judgmen t: To enforce
the judgment, Plaintiff approaches a court enforcement officer such as a court bailiff or sheriff, or a private bailiff.
* Plaintiff’s request for enforcement order: Plaintiff applies to the court to obtain the enforcement order ('seal' on
judgment).
35 Plaintiff’s advancement of enforcement fees: Plaintiff pays the fees related to the enforcement of the judgment.
36 Attachment of enforcement order to judgment: The judge attaches the enforcement order (‘seal’) to the
judgment.
* Delivery o f enforcement order: The court's enforcement order is delivered to a court enforcement officer or a
(private) bailiff.
37
Request to Defendant to comply voluntarily with judgment: Plaintiff, a court enforcement officer or a (private)
bailiff requests Defe ndant to voluntarily comply with the judgment, giving Defendant a last chance to comply
voluntarily with the judgment.

90 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

No. Procedure
38 Identification of Defendant's assets for attachment by court official or Defendant: Judge, a court enforcement
officer, a (private) b ailiff or the Defendant himself identifies Defendant's movable assets for attachment.
39 Attachment: Defendant’s movable goods are attached (physically or by registering, marking or separating assets).
40 Report on execution of attachment: A court enforcement officer or private process server delivers a report on the
attachment of Defendant's movable goods to the judge.
41 Call for public auction: The judge calls a public auction by, for example, advertising or publication in the
newspapers.
42 Sale through public auction: The Defendant’s movable property is sold at public auction.
43 Reimbursement of Plaintiff’s enforcement fees: Defendant reimburses Plaintiff's enforcement fees which Plaintiff
had advanced previously.
44 Payment: Court orders that th e proceeds of the public auction or the direct sale be delivered to Plaintiff.
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
Source: Doing Business database.

91 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

RESOLVING INSOLVENCY
A robust bankruptcy system functions as a filter,
ensuring the sur vival of economically efficient
companies and reallocating the resources of
inefficient ones. Fast and cheap insolvency
proceedings result in the speedy return of
businesses to normal operation and increase
returns to creditors. By improving the expectatio ns
of creditors and debtors about the outcome of
insolvency proceedings, well -functioning
insolvency systems can facilitate access to finance,
save more viable businesses and thereby improve
growth and sustainability in the economy overall.
What do the ind icators cover?
Doing Business studies the time, cost and outcome
of insolvency proceedings involving domestic
entities. It does not measure insolvency
proceedings of individuals and financial
institutions. The data are derived from survey
responses by loca l insolvency practitioners and
verified through a study of laws and regulations as
well as public information on bankruptcy systems.
The ranking on the ease of resolving insolvency is
based on the recovery rate, which is recorded as
cents on the dollar re couped by creditors through
reorganization, liquidation or debt enforcement
(foreclosure) proceedings. The recovery rate is a
function of time, cost and other factors, such as
lending rate and the likelihood of the company
continuing to operate.
To make th e data comparable across economies,
Doing Business uses several assumptions about the
business and the case. It assumes that the
company:
• Is a domestically owned, limited liability
company operating a hotel.
• Operates in the economy’s largest business
city.

WHAT THE RESOLVING INSOLVENCY
INDICATORS MEASURE
Time required to recover debt (years)
Measured in calendar years
Appeals and requests for extension are
included
Cost required to recover debt (% of debtor’s
estate)
Measured as percentage of estat e value
Court fees
Fees of insolvency administrators
Lawyers’ fees
Assessors’ and auctioneers’ fees
Other related fees
Recovery rate for creditors (cents on the
dollar)
Measures the cents on the dollar recovered
by creditors
Present value of debt recovered
Official costs of the insolvency proceedings
are deducted
Depreciation of furniture is taken into
account
Outcome for the business (survival or not)
affects the maximum value that can be
recovered

• Has 201 employees, 1 main secured creditor
and 50 unsec ured creditors.
• Has a higher value as a going concern —and
the efficient outcome is either reorganization
or sale as a going concern, not piecemeal
liquidation.

92 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

RESOLVING INSOLVENCY
Where does the economy stand today?
Speed, low costs and continuation of viable businesses
characterize the top -performing economies. How
efficient are insolvency proceedings in Comoros?
According to data collected by Doing Business ,
Comoros receives a “ no practice” mark for resolving
insolvency, indicating that in each of th e previous 5
years there were no cases involving a judicial
reorganization, judicial liquidation or debt enforcement procedure (foreclosure). The average
recovery rate is 0.0
cents on the dollar .
Globally, Comoros stands at 185 in the ranking of 185
econom ies on the ease of resolving insolvency (figure
11.1). The rankings for comparator economies and the
regional average ranking provide other useful
benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of insolvency
proceedings in Comoros.

Figure 11.1 How Comoros and comparator economies rank on the ease of resolving insolvency

Source: Doing Business database.

93 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

RESOLVING INSOLVENCY
What are the changes over time?
While the most recent Doing Business data reflect the
efficiency of insolvency proceedings in Comoros to day,
data over time show where the efficiency has changed
—and where it has not (table 11.1). That can
help identify where the potential for improvement is
greatest.

Table 11.1 The ease of resolving insolvency in Comoros over time
By Doing Business repor t year
Indicator DB2004 DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013
Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 185 185
Time (years) n.a. n.a. no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
Cost (% of estate) n.a. n.a. no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
no
practice
Recovery rate
(cents on the
dollar)
n.a. n.a. 0.0 0.0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2012 rankings shown are not last
year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2012 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the
addition of 2 economies (Barbados and Malta) to the sample t his year. “No practice” indicates that in each of the previous 5 years
the economy had no cases involving a judicial reorganization, judicial liquidation or debt enforcement procedure (foreclosure). This
means that creditors are unlikely to recover their m oney through a formal legal process (in or out of court). The recovery rate for
“no practice” economies is 0 .
Source: Doing Business database.

94 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

RESOLVING INSOLVENCY
A well-balanced bankruptcy system distinguishes
companies that are financially distressed but
economically viable from inefficient companies that
should be liquidated. But in some insolvency systems
even viable businesses are liquidated. This is starting to change. Many recent reforms of bankruptcy laws have
been aimed at helping more of the vi
able businesses
survive. What insolvency reforms has Doing Business
recorded in Comoros (table 11.2)?

Table 11.2 How has Comoros made resolving insolvency easier —or not?
By Doing Business report year
DB year Reform
DB2008 No reform as measured by Do ing Business.
DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business.
DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Bu siness.
Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports
for these years, available at https://www.doingbusiness.org.
Source: Doing Business database.

95 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
Doing Business measures flexibility in the regulation of
employment, specifically as it affects the hiring and
redundancy of workers and the rigidity of working
hours. From 2007 to 2011 improvements were made to
align the methodology for the employing workers
indicators with the letter and spirit of the International
Labo ur Organization (ILO) conventions. Only 4 of the
188 ILO conventions cover areas measured by Doing
Business: employee termination, weekend work,
holiday with pay and night work. The Doing Business
methodology is fully consis tent with these 4
conventions. The ILO conventions covering areas
related to the employing workers indicators do not
include the ILO core labor standards —8 conventions
covering the right to collective bargaining, the
elimination of forced labor, the abolit ion of child labor
and equitable treatment in employment practices.
Between 2009 and 2011 the World Bank Group worked
with a consultative group —including labor lawyers,
employer and employee representatives, and experts
from the ILO, the Organisation for Economic Co –
operation and Development , civil society and the
private sector —to review the employing workers
methodology and explore future areas of research.

A full report with the conclusions of the consultative
group is available at https://www.doingbusi ness.org/
methodology/employing -workers.

Doing Business 2013 does not present rankings of
economies on the employing workers indicators or
include the topic in the aggregate ranking on the ease
of doing business. The report does present the data on
the em ploying workers indicators in an annex. Detailed
data collected on labor regulations are available on the
Doing Business website
(https://www.doing business.org). Particular data for
Comoros are presented here
without scoring.

To make the data on employin g workers comparable
across economies, several assumptions about the
worker and the business are used.

The worker:
• Earns a salary plus benefits equal to the
economy’s average wage during the entire
period of his employment.
• Has a pay period that is the m ost common for
workers in the economy.
• Is a lawful citizen who belongs to the same
race and religion as the majority of the
economy’s population.
• Resides in the economy’s largest business city.
• Is not a member of a labor union, unless
membership is mandat ory.

The business:

• Is a limited liability company.
• Operates in the economy’s largest business
city.
• Is 100% domestically owned.
• Operates in the manufacturing sector.
• Has 60 employees.
• Is subject to collective bargaining agreements
in economies where such agreements cover
more than half the manufacturing sector and
apply even to firms not party to them.
• Abides by every law and regulation but does
not grant workers more benefits than
mandated by law, regulation or (if applicable)
collective bargaining agree ment.

96 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
What do some of the data show ?
One of the employing workers indicators is the
difficulty of hiring index. This measure assesses, among
other things, the minimum wage for a 19 -year -old worker in his or her first job. Doing Busines
s data show
the trend in the minimum wage applied by Comoros
(figure 12.1).

Figure 12.1 Has the minimum wage for a 19 -year -old worker or an apprentice increased over time?
Minimum wage (US$ per month)

Note: A horizontal line along the x -axis of the figure indicates that the economy has no minimum wage.
Source: Doing Business database.

97 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
Employment laws are needed to protect workers from
arbitrary or unfair treatment and to ensure efficient
contracting between employers and workers. M any
economies that changed their labor regulations in the past 4 years did so in ways that increased labor market
flexibility. What changes did Comoros adopt that
affected the Doing Business
indicators on employing
workers (table 12.1)?

Table 12.1 What changes did Comoros make in employing workers in 2012 ?
Reform
No reform as measured by Doing Business.
Source: Doing Business database.

98 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
What are the details?
The data on employing workers reported here for
Comoros are based on a detai led survey of
employment regulations that is completed by local lawyers and public officials. Employment laws and
regulations as well as secondary sources are reviewed
to ensure accuracy.

Rigidity of employment index
The rigidity of employment index me asures 3 areas of labor regulation: difficulty of hiring, rigidity of hours and
difficulty of redundancy.

Difficulty of hiring index
The difficul ty of hiring index measures whether fixed –
term contracts are proh ibited for permanent tasks; the
maximum cum ulative duration of fixed -term contracts;
and the ratio of the minimum wage for a trainee or
first -time employee to the average value added per worker
. (The average value added per worker is the
ratio of an economy’s gross national income per capita
to the working -age population as a percentage of the
total population.)

Difficulty of hiring index Data
Fixed -term contracts prohibited for permanent tasks? No
Maximum length of a single fixed -term contract (months) 24
Maximum length of fixed -term contrac ts, including renewals (months) 36
Minimum wage for a 19-year old worker or an apprentice (US$/month) 0.0
Ratio of minimum wage to value added per worker 0.00
Source: Doing Business database.

99 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
Rigidity of hours index
The rigidity of hours index has 5 components: whether
there are r estrictions on night work; whether there are
restriction s on weekly holiday work; whether the
workweek can consist of 5.5 da ys or is more than 6
days; whether the workweek can extend to 50 hours or
more (in cluding overtime) for 2 months a year to respond to a seasonal
increase in production; and
whether the average paid annual leave for a worker
with 1 year of tenure, a worker with 5 years and a
worker with 10 years is more than 26 working days or
fewer than 15 working days.

Rigidity of hours index Data
Standard workday in manufacturing (hours) 8 hours
50 -hour workweek allowed for 2 months a year in case of a seasonal
increase in production? Yes
Maximum working days per week 6.0
Premium for night work (% of hourly pay) in case of continuous
operations 0%
Premium for work on weekly rest day (% of hourly pay) in case of
continuous operations 0%
Major restrictions on night work in case of continuous operations? No
Major restrictions on weekly holiday in case of continuous operations? Yes
Paid annual leave for a worker with 1 year of tenure (in working days) 22.0
Paid annual leave for a worker with 5 years of tenure (in working days) 22.0
Paid annual leave for a worker with 10 years of tenure (in working days) 22.0
Paid annual leave (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years of tenure, in
working days) 22.0
Source: Doing Business database.

100 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
Difficulty of redundancy index
The difficulty of redundancy index has 8 components :
whether redundancy is disallowed as a basis for
terminating workers; whether the employer needs to
notify a third party (such as a government agency) to
terminate 1 redundant worker; whether the employer
needs to notify a third party to terminate a group of 9
redundant workers; whether the employer needs
approval from a third party to terminate 1 redundant worker; whether the employer needs approval from a
third party to terminate a group of 9 redundant
workers; whether the law requires the employer to
re
assign or retrain a worker before making the worker
redundant; whether priority rules apply for
redundancies; and whether priority rules apply for
reemployment.

Difficulty of redundancy index Data
Dismissal due to redundancy allowed by law? Yes
Thir d-party notification if 1 worker is dismissed? Yes
Third -party approval if 1 worker is dismissed? No
Third -party notification if 9 workers are dismissed? Yes
Third -party approval if 9 workers are dismissed? No
Retraining or reassignment obligation before redundancy? No
Priority rules for redundancies? Yes
Priority rules for reemployment? Yes
Source: Doing Business database.

101 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

EMPLOYING WORKERS
Redundancy cost
The redundancy cost indicator measures the cost of
advance notice requirements, severa nce payments and
penalties due when terminating a redundant worker,
expressed in weeks of salary. The average value of notice requirements and severance payments
applicable to a worker with 1 year of tenure, a worker
with 5 years and a worker with 10 years
is used to
assign the score.

Redundancy cost indicator Data
Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 1 year of tenure, in salary
weeks) 13.0
Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 5 years of tenure, in
salary weeks) 13.0
Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 10 years of tenure, in
salary weeks) 13.0
Notice period for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years
of tenure, in salary weeks) 13.0
Severance pay for redundancy di smissal (for a worker with 1 year of tenure, in
salary weeks) 4.3
Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 5 years of tenure, in
salary weeks) 21.7
Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 10 years of tenure, in
salary w eeks) 43.3
Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years
of tenure, in salary weeks) 23.1
Source: Doing Business database.

102 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

DATA NOTES
The indicators presented and analyzed in Doing
Business measure business regulati on and the
protection of property rights —and their effect on
businesses, especially small and medium -size domestic
firms. First, the indicators document the complexity of
regulation, such as the number of procedures to start a
business or to register and t ransfer commercial
property. Second, they gauge the time and cost of
achieving a regulatory goal or complying with
regulation, such as the time and cost to enforce a
contract, go through bankruptcy or trade across
borders. Third, they measure the extent of legal
protections of property, for example, the protections
of investors against looting by company directors or
the range of assets that can be used as collateral
according to secured transactions laws. Fourth, a set of
indicators documents the tax burde n on businesses.
Finally, a set of data covers different aspects of
employment regulation.
The data for all sets of indicators in Doing Business
2013 are for June 2012.
2

Methodology
The Doing Business data are collected in a
standardized way. To start, t he Doing Business team,
with academic advisers, designs a questionnaire. The
questionnaire uses a simple business case to ensure
comparability across economies and over time —with
assumptions about the legal form of the business, its
size, its location and the nature of its operations.
Questionnaires are administered through more than
9,600 local experts, including lawyers, business
consultants, accountants, freight forwarders,
government officials and other professionals routinely
administering or advising on legal and regulatory
requirements. These experts have several rounds of
interaction with the Doing Business team, involving
conference calls, written correspondence and visits by
the team. For Doing Business 2013 team members
visited 24 economies to ver ify data and recruit
respondents. The data from questionnaires are
subjected to numerous rounds of verification, leading
to revisions or expansions of the information collected.
2 The data for paying taxes refer to January – December 2011.
The Doing Business method ology offers several
advantages. It is transparent, using factual information
about what laws and regulations say and allowing
multiple interactions with local respondents to clarify
potential misinterpretations of questions. Having
ECONOMY CHARACTERISTICS
Gross national income per capita
Doing Business 2013 reports 2011 income per capita
as published in the World Bank’s World Development
Indicators 2012. Income is calculated using the Atlas
method (current US$). For cost indicators expressed
as a percentage of income per capita, 2011 gross
national income (GNI) in U.S. dollars is used as the
denominator. GNI data were not available from the
World Bank for Afghanistan; Australia; The Bahamas;
Bahrain; Barbados; Brunei Darussalam; Cyprus;
Djibouti; Guyana; the Islamic Republic of Iran;
Kuwait; Malta; New Z ealand; Oman; Puerto Rico
(territory of the United States); Sudan; Suriname; the
Syrian Arab Republic; Timor -Leste; West Bank and
Gaza; and the Republic of Yemen. In these cases
GDP or GNP per capita data and growth rates from
the International Monetary Fu nd’s World Economic
Outlook database and the Economist Intelligence
Unit were used.
Region and income group
Doing Business uses the World Bank regional and
income group classifications, available at
https://data.worldbank.org/about/country –
classifications. The World Bank does not assign
regional classifications to high -income economies.
For the purpose of the Doing Business report, high –
income OECD economies are assigned the “regional”
classification OECD high income. Figures and tables
presenting regional averages include economies
from all income groups (low, lower middle, upper
middle and high income).
Population
Doing Business 2013 reports midyear 2011
population statistics as published in World
Development Indicators 2012.

103 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

representative samples of respondents is not an issue;
Doing Business is not a statistical survey, and the texts
of the relevant laws and regulations are collected and
answers checked for accuracy. The methodology is
inexpensive and easily replicable, so data can be
collected in a large sample of economies. Because
standard assumptions are used in the data collection,
comparisons and benchmarks are valid across
economies. Finally, the data not only highlight the
extent of specific regulatory obstacles to business but
also identif y their source and point to what might be
reformed.
Information on the methodology for each Doing
Business topic can be found on the Doing Business
website at
https://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/.

Limits to what is measured
The Doing Business methodo logy has 5 limitations that
should be considered when interpreting the data. First,
the collected data refer to businesses in the economy’s
largest business city (which in some economies differs
from the capital) and may not be representative of
regulation in other parts of the economy. To address
this limitation, subnational Doing Business indicators
were created (see the section on subnational Doing
Business indicators). Second, the data often focus on a
specific business form —generally a limited liabilit y
company (or its legal equivalent) of a specified size —
and may not be representative of the regulation on
other businesses, for example, sole proprietorships.
Third, transactions described in a standardized case
scenario refer to a specific set of issues and may not
represent the full set of issues a business encounters.
Fourth, the measures of time involve an element of
judgment by the expert respondents. When sources
indicate different estimates, the time indicators
reported in Doing Business represent t he median
values of several responses given under the
assumptions of the standardized case.
Finally, the methodology assumes that a business has
full information on what is required and does not
waste time when completing procedures. In practice,
completin g a procedure may take longer if the
business lacks information or is unable to follow up
promptly. Alternatively, the business may choose to
disregard some burdensome procedures. For both
reasons the time delays reported in Doing Business 2013
would diffe r from the recollection of
entrepreneurs reported in the World Bank Enterprise
Surveys or other perception surveys.

Subnational Doing Business indicators
This year Doing Business completed subnational
studies for Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, the Russian
Federation and the United Arab Emirates. Each of
these countries had already asked to have subnational
data in the past, and this year Doing Business updated
the indicators, measured improvements over time and
expanded geographic coverage to additional cities or
added additional indicators. Doing Business also
published regional studies for the Arab world, the East
African Community and member states of the
Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in
Africa (OHADA).
The subnational studies point to differences in
business regulation and its implementation —as well as
in the pace of regulatory reform —across cities in the
same economy. For several economies subnational
studies are now periodically updated to measure
change over time or to expand geographi c coverage
to additional cities. This year that is the case for all the
subnational studies published.

Changes in what is measured
The ranking methodology for paying taxes was
updated this year. The threshold for the total tax rate
introduced last year for the purpose of calculating the
ranking on the ease of paying taxes was updated. All
economies with a total tax rate below the threshold
(which is calculated and adjusted on a yearly basis)
receive the same ranking on the total tax rate
indicator. The thr eshold is not based on any economic
theory of an “optimal tax rate” that minimizes
distortions or maximizes efficiency in the tax system of
an economy overall. Instead, it is mainly empirical in
nature, set at the lower end of the distribution of tax
rates levied on medium -size enterprises in the
manufacturing sector as observed through the paying
taxes indicators. This reduces the bias in the indicators
toward economies that do not need to levy significant
taxes on companies like the Doing Business
standar dized case study company because they raise
public revenue in other ways —for example, through

104 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

taxes on foreign companies, through taxes on sectors
other than manufacturing or from natural resources
(all of which are outside the scope of the
methodology). Giving the same ranking to all
economies whose total tax rate is below the threshold
avoids awarding economies in the scoring for having
an unusually low total tax rate, often for reasons
unrelated to government policies toward enterprises.
For example, eco nomies that are very small or that are
rich in natural resources do not need to levy broad –
based taxes.

Data challenges and revisions
Most laws and regulations underlying the Doing
Business data are available on the Doing Business
website at https://www.do ingbusiness.org. All the
sample questionnaires and the details underlying the
indicators are also published on the website. Questions
on the methodology and challenges to data can be
submitted through the website’s “Ask a Question”
function at https://www.d oingbusiness.org.

Ease of doing business and distance to
frontier
Doing Business 2013 presents results for 2 aggregate
measures: the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing
business and the distance to frontier measure. The
ease of doing business ranking compares economies
with one another, while the distance to frontier
measure benchmarks economies to the frontier in
regulatory practice, measuring the absolute distance to
the best performance on each indicator. Both
measures can be used for comparisons ov er time.
When compared across years, the distance to frontier
measure shows how much the regulatory environment
for local entrepreneurs in each economy has changed
over time in absolute terms, while the ease of doing
business ranking can show only relative change.
Ease of doing business
The ease of doing business index ranks economies
from 1 to 185. For each economy the ranking is
calculated as the simple average of the percentile
rankings on each of the 10 topics included in the index
in Doing Business 2013 : starting a business, dealing
with construction permits, getting electricity,
registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders,
enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. The
employing workers indicator
s are not included in this
year’s aggregate ease of doing business ranking. In
addition to this year’s ranking, Doing Business presents
a comparable ranking for the previous year, adjusted
for any changes in methodology as well as additions of
economies or topics.
3
Construction of the ease of doing business index
Here is one example of how the ease of doing business
index is constructed. In Finland it takes 3 procedures,
14 days and 4% of annual income per capita in fees to
register a property. On these 3 indicators Finland ranks
in the 6th, 16th
and 39th percentiles. So on average
Finland ranks in the 20th percentile on the ease of
registering property. It ranks in the 30th percentile on
starting a business, 28
th percentile on getting credit,
24th percenti le on paying taxes, 13th percentile on
enforcing contracts, 5th percentile on trading across
borders and so on. Higher rankings indicate simpler
regulation and stronger protection of property rights.
The simple average of Finland’s percentile rankings on
a ll topics is 21st. When all economies are ordered by
their average percentile rankings, Finland stands at 11
in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing
business.
More complex aggregation methods —such as
principal components and unobserved components —
yie ld a ranking nearly identical to the simple average
used by Doing Business .
4 Thus, Doing Business uses
the simplest method: weighting all topics equally and,
3 In case of revisions to the methodology or corrections to the
underlying data, the data are back -calculated to provide a
comparable time series since the year the relevant economy or topic
was first included in the data set. The time series is available on the
Doing Business website (https://www.doingbusiness.org). Six topics
and more than 50 economies have been added since the inception
of the p roject. Earlier rankings on the ease of doing business are
therefore not comparable.
4 See Simeon Djankov, Darshini Manraj, Caralee McLiesh and Rita
Ramalho, “ Doing Business Indicators: Why Aggregate, and How to
Do It” (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005). P rincipal components
and unobserved components methods yield a ranking nearly
identical to that from the simple average method because both
these methods assign roughly equal weights to the topics, since the
pairwise correlations among indicators do not dif fer much. An
alternative to the simple average method is to give different weights
to the topics, depending on which are considered of more or less
importance in the context of a specific economy.

105 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

within each topic, giving equal weight to each of the
topic components. 5
If an economy has no la ws or regulations covering a
specific area —for example, insolvency —it receives a
“no practice” mark. Similarly, an economy receives a
“no practice” or “not possible” mark if regulation exists
but is never used in practice or if a competing
regulation prohibits such practice. Either way, a “no
practice” mark puts the economy at the bottom of the
ranking on the relevant indicator.
The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. It
does not account for an economy’s proximity to large
markets, the qualit y of its infrastructure services (other
than services related to trading across borders and
getting electricity), the strength of its financial system,
the security of property from theft and looting,
macroeconomic conditions or the strength of
underlying institutions.
Variability of economies’ rankings across topics
Each indicator set measures a different aspect of the
business regulatory environment. The rankings of an
economy can vary, sometimes significantly, across
indicator sets. The average correla tion coefficient
between the 10 indicator sets included in the
aggregate ranking is 0.37, and the coefficients
between any 2 sets of indicators range from 0.19
( between dealing with construction permits and
getting credit) to 0.60 (between starting a busin ess
and protecting investors). These correlations suggest
that economies rarely score universally well or
universally badly on the indicators.
Consider the example of Canada. It stands at 17 in the
aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business. Its
ranking is 3 on starting a business, and 4 on both
resolving insolvency and protecting investors. But its
ranking is only 62 on enforcing contracts, 69 on
dealing with construction permits and 152 on getting
electricity.
Variation in performance across the in dicator sets is
not at all unusual. It reflects differences in the degree
of priority that government authorities give to
particular areas of business regulation reform and the
5 A technical note on the different aggregation and weighti ng
methods is available on the Doing Business website
(https://www.doingbusiness.org).
ability of different government agencies to deliver
tangible results in their area of responsibility.
Economies that improved the most across 3 or more
Doing Business topics in 2011/12
Doing Business 2013 uses a simple method to calculate
which economies improved the most in the ease of
doing business. First, it selects the economies that in
2011/12 implemented regulatory reforms making it
easier to do business in 3 or more of the 10 topics
included in this year’s ease of doing business ranking.
6
Twenty -three economies meet this criterion: Benin,
Burundi, Costa Rica, the Czech Republ ic, Georgia,
Greece, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Korea, the Lao People’s
Democratic Republic, Liberia, Mongolia, the
Netherlands, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, the
Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, the
United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Second, Doing
Business ranks these economies on the increase in
their ranking on the ease of doing business from the
previous year using comparable rankings.
Selecting the economies that implemented regulatory
reforms in at least 3 topics and improved the most in
the aggregate ranking is intended to highlight
economies with ongoing, broad -based reform
programs.
Distance to frontier measure
A drawback of the ease of doing business ranking is
that it can measure the regulatory performance of
economies only relative to the performance of others.
It does not provide information on how the absolute
quality of the regulatory environment is improving
over time. Nor does it provide information on how
large the gaps are between economies at a single
point in time.
The dis tance to frontier measure is designed to
address both shortcomings, complementing the ease
of doing business ranking. This measure illustrates the
distance of an economy to the “frontier,” and the
change in the measure over time shows the extent to
which t he economy has closed this gap. The frontier is
a score derived from the most efficient practice or
highest score achieved on each of the component
indicators in 9 Doing Business indicator sets (excluding
6 Doing Business reforms making it more difficult to do business are
subtracted from the total number of those making it easier to do
business.

106 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

the employing workers and getting electricity
indicators) by any economy since 2005. In starting a
business, for example, New Zealand has achieved the
highest performance on the time (1 day), Canada and
New Zealand on the number of procedures required
(1), Slovenia on the cost (0% of income per capita) and
Australia and 90 other economies on the paid -in
minimum capital requirement (0% of income per
capita). Calculating the distance to frontier for each
economy involves 2 main steps. First, individual
indicator scores are normalized to a common unit:
except for the total tax rate. To do so, each of the 28
component indicators y is rescaled to (max − y )/(max
− min), with the minimum value (min) representing the
frontier —the highest performance on that indicator
across all economies since 2005. For the total ta x rate,
consistent with the calculation of the rankings, the
frontier is defined as the total tax rate corresponding
to the 15
th percentile based on the overall distribution
of total tax rates for all years. Second, for each
economy the scores obtained for individual indicators
are aggregated through simple averaging into one
distance to frontier score. An economy’s distance to
frontier is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0
represents the lowest performance and 100 the
frontier.
The difference bet ween an economy’s distance to
frontier score in 2005 and its score in 2012 illustrates
the extent to which the economy has closed the gap to
the frontier over time. And in any given year the score
measures how far an economy is from the highest
performance at that time. The maximum (max) and minimum (min) observed
values are computed for the 174 economies included
in the Doing Business
sample since 2005 and for all
years (from 2005 to 2012). The year 2005 was chosen
as the baseline for the economy sample because it was
the first year in which data were available for the
majority of economies (a total of 174) and for all 9
indicator sets included in the measure. To mitigate the
effects of extreme outliers in the distributions of the
rescaled data (very few ec onomies need 694 days to
complete the procedures to start a business, but many
need 9 days), the maximum (max) is defined as the 95
th
percentile of the pooled data for all economies and all
years for each indicator. The exceptions are the getting
credit, protecting investors and resolving insolvency
indicators, whose construction precludes outliers.
Take Ghana, which has a score of 67 on the distance to
frontier measure for 2012. This score indicates that the
economy is 33 percentage points away from the
fr ontier constructed from the best performances
across all economies and all years. Ghana was further
from the frontier in 2005, with a score of 54. The
difference between the scores shows an improvement
over time.
The distance to frontier measure can also b e used for
comparisons across
economies in the same year,
complementing the ease of doing business ranking.
For example, Ghana stands at 64 this year in the ease
of doing business ranking, while Peru, which is 29
percentage points from the frontier, stands at 43.

107 Comoros Doing Business 201 3

RESOURCES ON THE DOING BUSINESS WEBSITE

Current features
News on the Doing Business project
https://www.doingbusiness.org

Rankings
How economies rank —from 1 to 185
https://www.doingbusine ss.org/rankings/

Data
All the data for 185 economies —topic rankings,
indicator values, lists of regulatory procedures and
details underlying indicators
https://www.doingbusiness.org/data/

Reports
Acce ss to Doing Business reports as well as
subnational and regional reports, reform case
studies and customized economy and regional
profiles
https://www.doingbusiness.org/reports/

Methodology
The method ologies and research papers
underlying Doing Business
https://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/

Research
Abstracts of papers on Doing Business topics and
related policy issues
https://www.doingbusi ness.org/research/

Doing Business reforms
Short summaries of DB2013 business regulation
reforms, lists of reforms since DB2008 and a
ranking simulation tool
https://www.doingbusiness.org/reforms/

Historical data
Customized data sets since DB2004
https://www.doingbusiness.org/custom -query/

Law library
Online collection of business laws and regulations
relating to business and gender issues
https://www.doingbusiness.org/law – library/
https://wbl.worldbank.org/

Contributors
More than 9,600 specialists in 185 economies who
participate in Doing Business
https://www.doingbusiness.org/contributors/doing –
busin ess/

NEW! Entrepreneurship data
Data on business density for 130 economies
https://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/e
ntrepreneurship

More to come
Coming soon —informa tion on good practices and
data on transparency and on the distance to
frontier

108 Comoros Doing Business 201 3