Business reforms continued at speed in East Asia and Pacific, with regional economies adopting 45 reforms during the past year, bringing to 371 the total number of private sector reforms enacted in the region over the past 15 years, says the World Bank Group’s latest Doing Business report.
The report released on October 31 monitors the ease of doing business for small and medium enterprises around the world.
Vietnam and Indonesia have implemented the most reforms in the past 15 years, with 39 reforms each.
Today, an entrepreneur in Ho Chi Minh City spends 22 days and 6.5 percent income per capita registering a new company, compared to 61 days and 31.9 percent in 2003.
In Jakarta, the average recovery rate for resolving insolvency today is 64.3 cents on the dollar, compared to 9.9 cents in 2003.
“In the past 15 years, the East Asia and Pacific region has made significant progress in enabling entrepreneurship.
As the reform momentum continues building up in the region, those economies which lag behind have the opportunity to learn from the good practices adopted by their neighbors,” said Rita Ramalho, Acting Director of the World Bank’s Global Indicators Group, which produces the report.
This year’s report includes four case studies, including one which highlights three successful insolvency reforms, in France, Slovenia and Thailand, and the lessons learned that are transferable to other economies.
Two economies in the East Asia and Pacific region rank among the top 10 economies globally in the Doing Business rankings. The top-ranked economies are Singapore (2), and Hong Kong SAR, China (5).
The region’s lowest ranked economies are Myanmar (171) and Timor-Leste (178). Other large economies in the region and their rankings are China (78), Indonesia (72), Japan (34), Malaysia (24), the Philippines (113), Thailand (26) and Vietnam (68).
WB/VOV