Georgia, regional leader in business report by World Bank

Georgia holds first place for ease of doing business among countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asian region according to a new study by World Bank.

The ‘Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency’ report saw Georgia rank first in the region and take 15^th place out of 189 countries.

The research said Georgia had carried out 36 reforms in this field since 2005 – the highest number in the region after Rwanda. Georgia was followed by the Republic of Macedonia with 34 reforms.

"Economies in Europe and Central Asia have consistently led the world in the pace of regulatory reform,” said Rita Ramalho, Doing Business report lead author

"Governments’ commitment to improving the regulatory environment for entrepreneurs has allowed them to close the gap with the top performers in some areas. For example, the average time to register property in the region has fallen by 14 days since 2010, making the process faster than in OECD high-income economies,” she noted.

Globally, Singapore took the top spot in terms of ease of doing business, followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, Korea, Norway, United States of America, United Kingdom, Finland and Australia.

Georgia’s 15^th global position was one spot lower than the ranking it was offered in 2014.

The Doing Business Report is a study annually elaborated by the World Bank Group since 2003, which presented a detailed analysis of costs, requirements and procedures a specific type of private firm was subject to in all countries, and then, created rankings for every country.

The study has become one of the flagship knowledge products of the World Bank Group in the field of private sector development, and is claimed to have motivated the design of several regulatory reforms in developing countries.

The ‘Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency’ report measured regulations that affected 10 areas of the life of a business. These were: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.The report also measured labour market regulation however this was not included in this year’s ranking.