Bangladesh ranks among riskiest countries for business

Bangladesh is one of the top extremely risky countries, susceptible to protests, mass demonstrations and violence, according to rankings by a London-based risk analysis company.

The country ranked sixth in the top extremely risky country category in the latest quarterly Civil Unrest Index (CUI), devised by Verisk Maplecroft.

Bangladesh is however in a better place than India, which ranked fourth, and is only ahead of Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Burundi, among a ranking of 198 countries.

Maplecroft has put together a Civil Unrest Index that ranks almost 200 countries in terms of their exposure to protests, mass demonstrations, ethnic or religious violence.

The political risk dataset enables companies to identify and compare risks that impact their global operations, supply chains and investments.

This time, it featured up to five years of data for 43 risk indices covering 198 countries, the company said on its website.

Fourteen indices, quantifying regulatory and political violence risks, such as civil unrest, terrorism and resource nationalism risk, are updated on a quarterly basis to enable the identification of trends and emerging developments across dynamic risk issues.

The remaining 29 indices are updated annually and include an assessment of key 'structural risks' such as governance and resource security challenges, providing companies with insights into the long-term trajectory of a country.

The results are compiled from a survey that assigned scores and importance to a range of different factors.

France ranked 16th -- just behind Argentina and barely in front of Afghanistan; it is the only European country in the top 20 and considered 'high risk'. Greece, which almost got the boot from the euro, came in 25th. Germany and the UK are still considered 'low risk'.

It is notable that civil unrest does not just occur in the 'usual suspects' of high-risk, politically violent countries, such as Syria, Yemen and Libya, according to the report.

The low ranking for Bangladesh came less than a year after the country ranked lowly in the World Bank's last ranking on the 'ease of doing business'.

The country dropped two positions to 174 in the ranking, published in October last year, due to stalled regulatory reforms.