Doing business is easier in India, says World Bank

Washington, Sep 6 (UNI) Reforms aimed at reducing time and costs made doing business easier in India and Pakistan in 2005-2006, a new report by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has said.

Five reforms in India and two in Pakistan reduced the time, cost and hassle for businesses to comply with legal and administrative requirements. No other South Asian economy improved its business regulations in 2005-2006, ranking the region last in the pace of reforms.

''Doing Business 2007: How to Reform'' finds that India, the top reformer in South Asia, implemented reforms to simplify business registration, cross-border trade, and payment of taxes, as well as easing access to credit and strengthening investor protection.

Although the reforms improved India's ranking over last year's, it still ranks relatively low at 134 and lies 41 places after China-which is reforming at a faster pace than India.

The top 10 reformers are, in order, Georgia, Romania, Mexico, China, Peru, France,Croatia, Guatemala, Ghana, and Tanzania.

Doing Business 2007 also ranks 175 economies on the ease of doing business-covering 20 more economies than last year's report.

These rankings highlight significant obstacles to business in South Asia, compared to countries around the world.

The top ranked countries in the region are the Maldives (53) and Pakistan (74), followed by Bangladesh (88), Sri Lanka (89), Nepal (100), and India (134). Bhutan (138) and Afghanistan (162) are ranked lowest in the region.

The top 30 economies in the world are, in order, Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong (China), the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Norway, Ireland, Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Lithuania, Estonia, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, Latvia, Malaysia, Israel, St Lucia, Chile, South Africa, and Austria.

The rankings track indicators of the time and cost to meet government requirements in business start-up, operation, trade, taxation, and closure. They do not track variables such as market size, macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates.

India, as leading reformer in South Asia, has taken over the top spot from Pakistan in last year's report. India cut the time to start a business from 71 to 25 days and reduced the corporate income tax rate from 36.59 per cent to 33.66 per cent.

A Supreme Court decision made enforcing collateral simpler-easing access to credit. New risk management procedures in customs lowered import time by two days and exports by nine days. And reforms to stock exchange rules toughened investor protections.

Pakistan was the runner-up reformer in South Asia this year.

Reforms to modernise customs reduced time to import from 39 to 15 days and time to export from 33 to 24 days.

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