Singapore has retained its title as the world’s easiest place to do business, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2016 report.
It was followed by New Zealand and Denmark, while South Korea and Hong Kong took fourth and fifth spots respectively.
Completing the top ten list are Britain, the United States, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
Now in its 13th year, the annual report covers 189 economies and looks at the regulatory environment for medium and small-sized firms to see how it hinders or helps them in conducting business – from starting up and paying taxes to registering property as well as trading across borders, reported The Straits Times.
“A modern economy cannot function without regulation and, at the same time, it can be brought to a standstill through poor and cumbersome regulation,” said World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu.
“The challenge of development is to tread this narrow path by identifying regulations that are good and necessary, and shunning ones that thwart creativity and hamper the functioning of small and medium enterprises.”
By surveying and ranking economies, the organisation hopes that its “report card” will promote regulation which contributes to economic growth and prosperity for all.
The report also showed that the bottom 10 economies were mainly found in Africa, except for Haiti (182) and Venezuela (186). Eritrea was ranked as the worst place to do business.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
