Armenia improves its position in WB Doing Business-2012 report by six notches
ARKA, 20.10.2011Armenia has improved its position in the World Bank Doing Business 2012 Report by moving six notches up from the previous report to the 55th place. Armenia has the best rating among CIS countries after Kazakhstan.
The new report "Doing business in a more transparent world’ prepared by IFC and World Bank, released Wednesday, says countries continued to implement reforms aimed at improving the capacities of local firms to do business, as transparency and access to information continue play a key role in these reforms.
The World Bank started the Doing Business project nine years ago to assess how well countries handle key concerns for small- and medium-sized firms such as securing construction permits, getting electricity accounts, paying taxes and enforcing contracts. The rankings are designed to provide transparency about shortcomings and have influenced a number of countries looking to move up the list.
The 2012 report, released Wednesday night, shows that the most consistent improvers tend to be in emerging markets, where an action as straightforward as putting property records on computers can yield huge benefits.
The Armenian ministry of economy told ARKA that the country has significantly improved its position in the following five areas: starting a business, obtaining building permits, getting credit, paying taxes, as well as dissolving companies.
Over the last six years, the post-Soviet nation of Georgia has improved the most. In 2012 report it has moved one notch up to the 16th position.
Kazakhstan has moved up 11 points to 47th place, Azerbaijan has moved up 3 points to 66th place, Belarus has gone up by 22 points to 69th place, Russia has improved its standing by 4 notches to 120th place and Tajikistan has moved up by 5 points to 147th place.
The leader of the overall pack, Singapore, ranks highly on just about every front, whether getting credit or trading across borders. The report’s authors say Singapore has remained focused on finding new ways to make life easier for its businesses. It is followed by Hong Kong (China), New Zealand, the United States and Denmark.
Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group, said while the persistent unemployment and the need to create jobs are in the headlines, governments around the world continue to seek ways to improve the regulatory climate for domestic business.
"Small and medium-sized businesses that benefit most from these reforms are the key engines of job creation in many countries around the world," he said. -0-
