Gombe, Jigawa, Sokoto ranked easiest states to do business in Nigeria

The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has ranked Gombe as the state which provides the friendliest environment for business in Nigeria.

This is contained in the council’s 2023 Subnational Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) report.

This is the second time Gombe will clinch the top spot.

The state had emerged the overall best when PEBEC released its inaugural EoDB report in March 2021.

According to the latest PEBEC report, Gombe scored 7.15 to emerge as the number one state in Nigeria where it is mostly easy to do business while Jigawa state got a weighted score of 6.88 to come second; and Sokoto state with a 6.79 score came third.

PEBEC, in a statement, said the report featured six indicators – infrastructure; secure and stable environment; transparency and accessibility of information; regulatory environment; skills and labour and economic opportunity.

The council said each state was rated on a 10-point scale across the indicators, providing the basis for calculating the 2023 weighted EoDB score for each state.

A breakdown of the report by geopolitical zones showed that Plateau state with a score of 5.8 topped the states in the north-central; with Gombe state (7.15) topping the states in the north- east; Jigawa state (6.88) topping the north-west; Anambra state (6.19) first among the states in the south-east; Rivers state (5.76) on top of the south-south; and Ekiti state (5.79) leading the states in the south-west.

PEBEC said the report is designed to provide empirical information on the attractiveness of states’ business climates and to serve as a credible reference resource for businesses and investors.

The council said the 2023 EoDB report builds on the inaugural subnational EoDB baseline report released in March 2021 and improved it in several areas including deepening of the methodology and enhancing the statistical significance of the survey.

PEBEC added that the latest report provided more nuanced information on the business climate across the 36 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).