For the second year in a row, Singapore was ranked the world’s easiest place to do business, followed by New Zealand and the United States

For the second year in a row, Singapore was ranked the world’s easiest place to do business, followed by New Zealand and the United States, the World Bank’s annual ‘Doing Business’ report said on Wednesday.

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, Singapore and Taiwan recorded no net improvement in any of the 10 areas studied by the report, compared to Egypt, the top reformer, which made progress in five areas, according to 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 compares 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 United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia and Iceland.

The countries considered least business-friendly were, from the bottom, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad and Venezuela.

Singapore topped the list again for its efficient procedures, many of which can be done online, Mr Yap said.

‘It’s 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.’

Several Eastern European countries, 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 17, and together with Georgia, 18, is ahead of Belgium, 19, Germany, 20, the Netherlands, 21, France, 31, Spain, 38, and Italy, 53.

Egypt topped the list of reformers by cutting minimum capital requirements by 98 per cent and halving the startup time and cost.

In China, reforms included a new property law that put private property rights on equal footing as state property rights and expanded the range of assets that can be used as collateral. A new bankruptcy law gives secured creditors priority to the proceeds from their collateral. Construction became easier with electronic processing of building permits reducing delays by two weeks.

Overall, the country is in 83rd place for ease of doing business.

India also was speeding up its reforms, enabling online submissions of customs declarations and payment of customs fees, reducing the time it takes to meet all administrative requirements to export from 27 days in 2006 to 18 as well as expanding the credit bureau to include payment histories on businesses as well as individuals. India was ranked 120th in the overall list.

Indonesia and Vietnam strengthened investor protections while Turkey cut its corporate income tax from 30 per cent to 20 per cent, among other changes.

The ‘Doing Business’ report tracks a set of regulatory indicators related to business start-up, operation, trade, payment of taxes and closure by measuring the time and cost associated with various government requirements.

It does not track variables such as economic policies, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions or crime rates.

A global trade union group criticized the report, saying that a section on employing workers asserts wrongly that the elimination of workers’ protection rules creates higher economic growth and job creation.

The group said that a number of countries known for repeated violations of workers’ rights scored well in the IFC report. — AP