What the World Bank’s Business Ready Reset Reveals About Türkiye’s Reform Gap
The World Bank has launched Business Ready 2024, a new benchmark designed to replace the discontinued Doing Business index. The shift is substantive rather than cosmetic. It reflects a reassessment of what actually shapes business decisions, moving the focus from regulatory design to day-to-day state performance.
For Türkiye, the report’s relevance lies less in comparison and more in diagnosis. Business Ready does not reward announcements. It measures whether rules are applied consistently, public services function reliably, and disputes are resolved without excessive friction.
Regulation is present, certainty is uneven
One of the report’s underlying messages is that many middle-income economies no longer struggle with a lack of regulation. The constraint lies elsewhere, in predictability.
Türkiye fits this profile. The legal and regulatory framework is dense, but businesses often face divergent interpretations across institutions, frequent adjustments at the secondary level, and administrative discretion that reshapes outcomes after decisions are taken.
From the perspective of Business Ready, this matters because firms operate on expectations rather than intentions. When outcomes vary despite stable rules, investment horizons shorten and risk premiums rise.
Digital access without procedural closure
Business Ready places particular weight on what it terms the public services gap. Across economies, regulatory frameworks tend to outperform the services meant to operationalize them.
Türkiye’s experience mirrors this pattern. Digital access has expanded rapidly, yet many procedures still require physical follow-up, parallel approvals, or manual confirmation. The bottleneck is not entry into the system, but completion within a predictable timeframe.
By shifting attention from availability to execution, the report reframes a familiar issue. The question is no longer whether platforms exist, but whether transactions reliably conclude.
Legal pathways exist, time remains the constraint
In dispute resolution, Business Ready looks beyond institutional presence. The benchmark is time.
For Türkiye, this is a recurring pressure point. Courts function and procedures are defined, but the duration and variability of outcomes often discourage enforcement. As cases stretch, firms adjust behavior long before judgments are delivered.
The report’s approach is quiet but pointed. Legal certainty is measured not by statutes, but by whether resolution arrives while it still matters.
Reform momentum versus institutional carry-through
Perhaps the most demanding aspect of Business Ready is its treatment of implementation capacity. Reform, in this framework, is not a legislative moment. It is a routine.
Türkiye’s reform record shows strong intent and episodic momentum. The challenge lies in sustaining reforms through personnel changes, fragmented authority, and uneven administrative capacity. The gap between reform initiation and reform endurance is where outcomes are shaped.
Business Ready implicitly tests whether reforms survive their own announcement cycle.
A benchmark designed to unsettle, not rank
The World Bank has deliberately avoided a single composite ranking. The aim is to reduce performative reform and redirect attention toward operational bottlenecks.
For Türkiye, this may be an opportunity rather than a liability. The absence of league tables shifts the conversation toward issues that domestic actors already recognize, including predictability, service delivery, judicial timing, and institutional consistency.
Business Ready does not single Türkiye out. It offers something more uncomfortable and more useful. A mirror that measures not ambition, but execution.
*** Full report: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/08942fab-9080-4f37-b7be-ef61c9f9aed9/content