Washington, D.C., November 4, 2010
—Most European economies continued to strengthen business regulations in the past year, widening opportunities for domestic firms, according to
Doing Business 2011: Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs,
the eighth in a series of annual reports published by IFC and the World Bank.
The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Ireland maintained their positions among the world’s top 10 on the ease of doing business; 10 European countries are also in the top 25. The European economies surveyed in
Doing Business 2011
implemented 42 measures making it easier to do business in the past year, matching the previous year’s pace. Six—Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden—improved in three or more areas covered by the report.
The global crisis triggered legal and institutional reforms in 2009-2010. Facing increasing insolvencies and debt disputes, many European economies reformed their insolvency regimes, including Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Baltic states.
“Particularly in times of economic distress, efficient court and bankruptcy procedures are needed to ensure that firms can be saved or reorganized as effectively as possible,” said Janamitra Devan, Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development at the World Bank Group.
Globally, doing business remains easiest in the high-income economies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—and most difficult in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In the past five years, about 85 percent of the world’s economies have made it easier for local entrepreneurs to operate, through 1,511 improvements to business regulation.
Doing Business
2011
pioneers a new measure showing how much business regulation has changed in 174 economies since 2005.
This year’s list of the 10 most-improved economies includes: Kazakhstan as the economy which improved business regulation for local entrepreneurs the most in the past year, three in Sub-Saharan Africa—Rwanda (a consistent reformer of business regulation), Cape Verde, and Zambia—as well as Peru, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Hungary, Grenada, and Brunei Darussalam.
About the
Doing Business
report series
Doing Business
analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business.
Doing Business
does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors. For example, it does not measure security, macroeconomic stability, corruption, skill level, or the strength of financial systems. Its findings have stimulated policy debates in more than 80 economies and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies.
About the World Bank Group
The World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit
www.worldbank.org
,
www.miga.org
, and
www.ifc.org
.
For more information about the Doing Business report series, and for region specific press releases, please visit:
www.doingbusiness.org
Contacts for region-specific queries on
Doing Business 2011:
Southern and Western Europe
Rachel Winter Jones +33 (0) 1-4069-3052 Oliver Griffith +33 (0) 1-4069-3195
Derek Warren +44 (207) 592-8402
