Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises shows that efforts to strengthen legal institutions and reduce the complexity and cost of regulatory processes have paid off for entrepreneurs in Europe and Central Asia. The region has overtaken East Asia and the Pacific as the second most business-friendly after the high-income economies in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The report finds that since 2009, 92 percent of economies in Europe and Central Asia have improved their process for starting a business, a higher share than in any other region. Thanks to these efforts, today it is the easiest region for business entry, ahead of the OECD high-income economies. In response to the financial crisis, 73 percent of the region’s economies reformed insolvency proceedings over the same period, and 85 percent made it easier to pay taxes.
Singapore tops the global ranking on the ease of doing business. Joining it on the list of the top 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulations are Hong Kong SAR, China; New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Malaysia; the Republic of Korea; Georgia; Norway; and the United Kingdom.
In addition to the global rankings, every year Doing Business reports the economies that have improved the most on the indicators since the previous year. The 10 economies topping that list this year are (in order of improvement) Ukraine, Rwanda, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, Kosovo, Djibouti, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Guatemala. Yet challenges persist: five of this year’s top improvers—Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, the Philippines, and Ukraine—are still in the bottom half of the global ranking on the ease of doing business.
Doing business in India seems to have become more difficult in the past one year as India slipped to the 134th spot in a global ranking of 189 countries by the World Bank. In 2013, India was at 134 position on the list.
The ranking, which is based on 10 indicators, revealed that India's performance had dropped on all but two parameters. Over the last one year, starting a business, protecting investors, getting credit, construction permits and electricity, filing for bankruptcy, paying taxes as well as registering a property have become tougher in the country.
At the state level, while Ludhiana was considered the best Indian city to do business in, Kolkata was at the bottom of the 17 cities ranked. Surprisingly, India's financial capital Mumbai was at the 10th spot much below New Delhi that came sixth.
Additional Inputs from Indian Media reports
