For the second year in a row, Singapore was ranked the world's easiest place to do business, followed by New Zealand and the US, the World Bank's annual Doing Business report said yesterday.
The report showed that while China and India are making progress in implementing business-friendly reforms, several East Asian countries are falling behind the pace of reforms in much of the rest of the world.
Cambodia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan recorded no net improvement in any of the 10 areas studied by the report. Egypt, the top reformer, made progress in five areas, said the International Finance Corporation, the bank's private sector arm.
"What we're seeing here is a region that continues to do quite well economically but perhaps runs the risk of being left behind simply because it's not keeping up with the pace of business reform," said Justin Yap, an author of the report, which compared business regulations in 178 economies.
Rounding out the rest of the top 10 in ease of doing business, the report ranked Hong Kong fourth, followed by Denmark, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia and Iceland.
The countries considered to be least business-friendly were, from the bottom, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Chad and Venezuela.
Singapore topped the list again for its efficient procedures, many of which can be done online, Yap said.
"It is also a country that seems to require relatively few interactions with government, for example with the use of one-stop shops," he said.
"Generally things are seen to run quite smoothly, take a short time and not cost very much," he said.
Several countries in Eastern Europe, including Croatia, Macedonia, Georgia and Bulgaria, dominated the list of top reformers, with some of the region's countries surpassing Western European economies in making regulations conducive to business, the bank said.
Estonia, the most business friendly of the former socialist bloc, ranks No. 17, and together with No. 18 Georgia, is ahead of No. 19 Belgium, No. 20 Germany, No. 21 the Netherlands, No. 31 France, No. 38 Spain and No. 53 Italy.
Egypt topped the list of reformers by cutting minimum capital requirements by 98 percent and halving startup time and cost.
In China, reforms included a new property law that put private property rights on an equal footing with state property rights and the expansion of the range of assets that can be used as collateral. A new bankruptcy law also gives secured creditors priority to the proceeds from their collateral. Construction in China became easier with electronic processing of building permits reducing delays by two weeks. Overall, the country is No. 83 for ease of doing business.
India, ranked No. 20, also was speeding up its reforms, enabling online submissions of customs declarations and payment of customs fees, reducing the time it takes to meet administrative requirements to export from 27 days last year to 18 and expanding the credit bureau to include payment histories on businesses as well as individuals.
Indonesia and Vietnam improved investor protections, while Turkey cut its corporate income tax from 30 percent to 20 percent.
"Investors are taking note. They look for upside potential and they find it in economies that are reforming regardless of the starting point," the report said.
Yap said the report did not advocate less regulation, but more efficient regulation, and that many countries known for strong social protections ranked in the top 30 in ease of doing business, such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
"This report is making an environment that's better for business, having more flexible regulations, but not having less regulations and certainly not eliminating worker protections," he said.
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