The Philippines should institute more reforms to make it easier to do business in the country, according to the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2012” report.
Published by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, the report revealed that the Philippines slipped in ranking in almost all categories related to doing business in the one-year period from June 2011 to June 2012, compared with those recorded in the previous one-year period.
Among a total of 185 economies ranked, the Philippines slipped from No. 136 to No. 138. The Philippines fared poorly in the rankings, compared with other Southeast Asian countries, except Laos, which were found to have made significant progress in improving business regulation practices.
The report said that “while the Philippines continues to improve its macroeconomic environment and sets pace-setting growth in gross domestic product, it lags in the implementation of regulatory reforms that would make it easier for local entrepreneurs to conduct their business.”
“Doing Business” analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including registration, start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors.
As in the past six years, Singapore once again topped the global ranking on the ease of doing business. Others in the top ten with the most business-friendly regulation were Hong Kong SAR, China; New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Norway; the United Kingdom; the Republic of Korea; Georgia; and Australia.
By and large, it was found that significant progress has been made in improving business regulatory practices across the globe. The average time, for instance, to start a business has fallen from 50 days to 30, since 2005. There were corresponding improvements in transferring property and simplifying tax compliance.
In the past year alone, 108 economies implemented 201 regulatory reforms that made it easier for local entrepreneurs to do business, the report found. Eastern Europe and Central Asia had the largest share of economies implementing regulatory reforms.
Topping the list of economies that registered the biggest improvements in the ease of doing business over the last year were Poland, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Greece, Serbia, and Kazakhstan.
This year’s report marks the 10th edition of the global “Doing in Business” series.
Photo from: business.inquirer.net
