World Bank Group’s annual report on the ease of doing business, Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, says that as many as 137 economies around the world have adopted key reforms that have made it easier to operate small and medium sized businesses.
The world’s top 10 countries that have shown massive improvements are, based on reforms undertaken, are Brunei Darussalam; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Belarus; Indonesia; Serbia; Georgia; Pakistan; United Arab Emirates (UAE); and Bahrain.
There is new ease in doing business worldwide now as governments are making these key reforms. . Starting a new business now takes an average of 21 days worldwide, compared with 46 days 10 years ago. Paying taxes in the Philippines involved 48 payments 10 years ago, compared to 28 now and in Rwanda, the time to register a property transfer has dropped from 370 days a decade ago to 12 days now.
This year’s Doing Businesshas also added gender measures to three indicators: Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts – finding disparities in 38 economies. Of these, 23 economies impose more steps for married women than men to start a business. Sixteen limit women’s ability to own, use and transfer property. Doing Business finds that, in these economies, fewer women work in the private sector both as employers and employees.
The report also features expansions to the Paying Taxes indicator, to cover post-filing processes, such as tax refunds, tax audits and administrative tax appeals, to better understand the overall tax environment.
Today, East Asia and the Pacific is home totwo of the world’s top 10 ranked economies. Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, China. Recently It is also home to two of the top 10 improvers, Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia.
Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Serbia amongst the world’s top 10 improvers in the Europe and Central Asian region, which was also a major reformer.
Business reform activity accelerated In Latin America and the Caribbean Business activity and reform accelerated with over two-thirds of the region’s economies implementing a total of 32 reforms in the past year, compared with 24 reforms the previous year.
The Middle East and North Africa regionsaw the most reforms implemented in the past year since 2009, with 35 reforms in 15 of the region’s 20 economies. Among the reformers, the UAE and Bahrain were among the world’s top 10 improvers.
In South Asia, five of the region’s eight economies implemented a total of 11 reforms in the past year, compared with nine the previous year. Pakistan, which was among the world’s top 10 improvers, implemented several reforms this past year, as did India and Sri Lanka. The bulk of the business reform activity in the region was aimed at facilitating cross-border trade. However, Afghanistan and Pakistan, stipulate additional hurdles for women entrepreneurs.
Sub-Saharan Africa economies stepped up the pace of reform activity, with 37 economies undertaking a total of 80 business reforms in the past year, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year
The full report and accompanying datasets are available at www.doingbusiness.org.
