Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, released recently by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank (WB), shows that Vietnam has implemented a total of 18 institutional or regulatory reforms, in 8 of 10 areas of business regulation measured by the annual Doing Business report over the past eight years. Vietnam’s business climate in 2013 is ranked 99th out of 185 economies.
Vietnam needs more effort
The Doing Business 2013 report, which covers the period from June 2011 to June 2012, Vietnam improved its business enabling environment through a regulatory reform that makes it easier for local firms to start a business. The most recent reform made starting a business easier by allowing Vietnamese companies to use self-printed value added tax invoices.
““Helping Vietnam to improve its competitiveness is one of the World Bank Group’s priorities in Vietnam,” said Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank Country Director for Vietnam. “Vietnam has implemented various reforms over the years to improve the business environment. However, the report findings also imply that more needs to be done to bring Vietnam to the level of other economies in the region.”
Business environment in other countries improves rigorously
According to the report, other countries in the Asia - Pacific region have improved their business environments more rigorously than Vietnam.
The report finds that 23 economies in East Asia and the Pacific have made their regulatory environment more business-friendly since 2005. During the past eight years, China made the greatest progress in improving business regulations for local entrepreneurs with 16 institutional reforms (ranked 91st out of 185 economies). According to the report, 11 of 24 economies in East Asia and the Pacific improved business regulations in the past year.
Across the globe, Singapore continues to provide the world’s most business-friendly regulatory environments for local entrepreneurs. The Republic of Korea is among the top 20 in the global ranking on the ease of doing business and Mongolia is the region’s top improver for the year in this year’s Doing Business report. Mongolia eliminated the minimum capital requirement for establishing a local limited liability company, guaranteed the right of borrowers to inspect their own credit data, and enacted new legislation to strengthen disclosure requirements for related-party transactions. The country’s business environment was ranked 76th in the ranking.
Singapore tops the global ranking on the ease of doing business for the seventh consecutive year while Hong Kong (China) holds onto the second spot. Joining them on the list of the 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulations are, in this order: New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Norway; the United Kingdom; the Republic of Korea; Georgia; and Australia.
The Doing Business report looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle. This year’s report covers 11 indicator sets: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency, and employing workers.
Quynh Anh
Vietnamese
