Taiwan ranked 25th among 183 global economies in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2012 report, down one notch from last year’s revised results, an indication that the nation needs to accelerate the pace at which barriers to business are being removed in the face of the rapid progress being made by competitors, Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister (CEPD) Christina Liu (劉憶如) said yesterday.
Taiwan ranked 24th in the annual business environment survey last year, a revised result from the nation’s original 33rd place from the Washington-based organization.
“Faced with the major improvements achieved by competitors such as South Korea, I am not really satisfied with Taiwan’s overall performance this year,” Liu told reporters after a -question-and-answer session at the legislature.
The latest report ranked South Korea eighth, up from its revised placing of 15th last year. The report indicated that this enhanced performance was based on South Korea’s introduction of an online process for starting a business, the merging of several taxes and the ability to file commercial litigation electronically. This is the first time the country has been ranked in the world’s top 10.
The world’s top five countries for doing business remained unchanged from last year — Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the US and Denmark, the report said.
East Asia was the best--performing region, with nine countries in the top 25. Japan was ranked 20th, China slid four spots to 91st and India was 132nd, the report said.
The report evaluated the polled economies based on 11 indicators of business regulations including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, access to a power supply, property registration, obtaining credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, cross border trade, contract enforcement, resolution of insolvency and worker employment.
Taiwan moved up on four of the indicators — starting a business, paying taxes, contract enforcement and dealing with construction permits. The most progress was made in starting a business, with Taiwan moving up from 24th place to 16th place.
The nation ranked third in access to a power supply, the report said, the first time this indicator has been included in the ease of doing business rankings.
However, Taiwan’s ranking fell in five categories: property registration, obtaining credit, protecting investors, cross-border trade and resolution of insolvency.
Moreover, because worker employment data — one of Taiwan’s weakest areas of performance — was not included for the second straight year, Liu said the nation’s ranking should have been even worse.
“The government has been talking about removing business barriers for years. Since other economies have made such rapid progress, we need to be critical about our failure to achieve the same level,” she said.
The council plans to integrate the data, Liu said, determining which key industries should be developed in each region as a reference point for the government as it decides where to relax regulations
Taiwan should also speed up free trade pact negotiations with other countries to facilitate cross-border trade and economic cooperation, Liu said.
South Korea’s free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU took effect in July and its FTA with the US will come into force early next year, she said.
additional reporting by CNA
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