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Sydney, Australia, September 10, 2008
—The Pacific region must accelerate its business regulatory reform efforts to keep up with the global pace, according to
Doing Business 2009
—the sixth in a series of annual reports published by IFC and the World Bank. The new report identifies 239 reforms occurring between June 2007 and June 2008 that made it easier to do business in 181 economies worldwide. In the Pacific, only five reforms were undertaken in four countries.
Vanuatu showed the biggest improvement, with its overall ranking on the ease of doing business rising to 60 from 67. It strengthened creditor protections by ensuring that secured creditors have priority outside and inside bankruptcy procedures. It also established a registry for secured creditors.
Tonga had the most reforms in the Pacific. It improved procedures for starting a business and dealing with construction permits.
Doing Business
ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates.
Singapore leads the global rankings on the overall ease of doing business for a third consecutive year. Australia got the highest ranking (9) for the Pacific, followed by Fiji (39), Tonga (43), Samoa (64), Solomon Islands (89), Papua New Guinea (95)
,
and Timor Leste (170).
Rankings for the Pacific countries have been slipping since the beginning of the
Doing Business
series, because the region has not been keeping pace with the global reform trend. With the support of IFC and other institutions, things are improving.
“Countries in the Pacific region are committing to reform agendas,” said Alan Moody, IFC Head of Advisory Services for the Pacific. “IFC is working with several of them to reform their business environment. Regardless of their stage of economic development, they are recognizing the role that regulatory reform can play in staying competitive, while boosting entrepreneurship and job creation,” he added.
“Economies need rules that are efficient, easy to use, and accessible to all who have to use them. Otherwise, businesses get trapped in the unregulated, informal economy, where they have less access to finance and hire fewer workers, and where workers lack the protection of labor law,” said Michael Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development. “
Doing Business
encourages good rules, and good rules are a better basis for healthy business than ‘who you know,’” he added.
Doing Business 2009
ranks 181 economies on the overall ease of doing business. The top 25 are
,
in order, Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong (China), Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Finland, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Bahrain, Belgium, Malaysia, Switzerland, Estonia, Korea, Mauritius, and Germany.
The
Doing Business
project is based on the efforts of more than 6,700 local experts—business consultants, lawyers, accountants, and government officials—and leading academics around the world who provided methodological support and review. The data, methodology, and names of contributors are publicly available online at
www.doingbusiness.org
.
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