29 May Doing Business Rankings
The World Bank has a wonderful website called Doing Business that tracks the ease of doing business throughout the world. There is a tremendous amount of useful information that is worth perusing.
For example, the top ten easiest places to do business in the world are Singapore, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Norway, and Ireland.
The biggest setbacks in the world occurred in Bolivia, Eritrea, Hungary, East Timor, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
The top ten reformers in the world are Georgia, Romania, Mexico, China, Peru, France, Croatia, Guatemala, Ghana, and Tanzania.
The five worst countries to do business in Europe are Greece (109), Albania (120), Croatia (124), Ukraine (128), and Belarus (129), while the five best are United Kingdom (6), Denmark (7), Norway (9), Ireland (10), and Iceland (12).
The five worst countries to do business in South America are Suriname, (122), Ecuador (123), Bolivia (131), Guyana (136) and Venezuela (164), while Chile (28) is far and away the easiest country to do business there.
Two noteworthy countries that scored quite poorly are India (134) and China (93), although China improved by 15 points since last year.
The best part of the website is the interactive Google map that allows you to visually see how each country performs.
For those who will be in New York on June 11 I thought I would pass this invitation along: USCIB Luncheon Briefing Doing Business 2007: How to Reform The World Bank’s authoritative guide to business regulation in 175 countries Monday, June 11, 2007 12:30 noon – 2:00 p.m. Citigroup Center 153 East 53rd Street New York City Which countries make it easiest — and which hardest — to start and run a business? Doing Business 2007: How to Reform, from the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, compares indicators on business regulations and their enforcement across 175 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Published annually, the highly respected Doing Business reports analyze government regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, ranking countries on their ease of doing business. Top reformers are identified, and best practices in reform are highlighted. This year’s! report, the fourth to be published in the series, presents a new analysis of 50 regulatory reform case studies. Co-authors Caralee McLeish and Simeon Djankov will lead a high-level discussion of Doing Business 2007, while also offering an advance look at — and soliciting feedback on — the anticipated findings of the 2008 report, due to be… Read more »