Malaysia tops East Asia’s emerging economies on ease of doing business, says report
Malaysia ranks first among emerging economies in East Asia on the ease of doing business, while neighbouring country Singapore tops the global ranking, according to a new World Bank Group report launched today.
Malaysia also ranks among the top five economies in East Asia and the Pacific (excluding Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand) in seven areas: protecting minority investors, trading across borders, starting a business, getting credit, enforcing contracts, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency.
The report, titled "Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency" also said that Malaysia’s global standing in the ease of doing business ranking improved from 20th in last year’s report to 18th this year, and reflects improvements in the ease of dealing with construction permits.
It said the one-stop shop for permits implemented last year led to further reduction in the time required to obtain a development approval.
“Through an ambitious reform agenda, Malaysia has gradually improved on the ease of doing business. This has benefited local entrepreneurs, who now have fewer regulatory hurdles to deal with and more resources to focus on their business,” said Rita Ramalho, Doing Business lead author, in a statement released by the World Bank Group.
“Malaysia’s case also shows how the latest technologies can be used to improve the regulatory environment for businesses. Over the past five years, for example, the implementation of electronic systems have made it easier for businesses to pay taxes and execute contracts.”
Doing Business showed that since 2005, Malaysia has improved its business regulatory framework through 17 reforms in the areas measured by the report, compared with the global average of 12 reforms per economy in that period.
It said Malaysia has narrowed the gap with some of the best practices worldwide.
“In business incorporation, for example, Malaysia has undertaken a series of steps to ease the burden for local entrepreneurs, such as merging the company, tax, social security, and employment fund registrations at a one-stop shop in 2011.
“Efforts such as these have reduced the time required to start a business from 37 days in 2005 to less than six days today, less time than in Ireland,” the World Bank Group said in a statement.
Besides Singapore, the top 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulatory environments are New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, the Republic of Korea, Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Australia.
The group said its annual report analyses regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency.
The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on the distance to frontier scores for 10 topics and cover 189 economies, it said.
However, World Bank Group said Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment, such as the quality of fiscal management, the level of skills in the labour force, or the resilience of financial systems. – October 29, 2014.
