World Bank and its division International Finance Corporation (IFC) have presented an annual report Doing Business on the problems of business activity regulation and issues of carrying out reforms in the field of entrepreneurship.

Thanks to reforms of business regulation, more businesses are starting up, finds Doing Business 2008 the fifth in an annual report series issued by the World Bank and IFC. Countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union reformed the most in 2006/07 along with a large group of emerging markets, including China and India.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as a region, surpassed East Asia this year in the ease of doing business. Several of the region’s countries have even passed many economies of Western Europe on this score. Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Hungary are among the region’s top reformers. Estonia, the most business-friendly country of the former socialist bloc, ranks 17th on the ease of doing business. Georgia and Latvia are also in the top 25. "The results show that as governments ease regulations for doing business, more entrepreneurs go into business," said Simeon Djankov, lead author of the report. "Eastern Europe has witnessed a boom in new business entry that rivals the rapid growth in East Asia in the past," he said.

In 2006-2007, Uzbekistan has achieved significant progress in the improvement of business environment, said the project’s private sector development specialist Svetlana Bagaudinova. The reforms pursued have eased the order of enterprise registration, voluntary business liquidation procedures, reduced tax burden. All these allowed Uzbekistan to be among the leaders of reformers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This is good news, as experience shows that easing conditions for business by the government promotes growth of private sector in the country.

Doing Business 2008 ranks 178 economies on the ease of doing business. The top 25, in order, are Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong (China), Denmark, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Iceland, Norway, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Switzerland, Estonia, Georgia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Austria.

The rankings are based on 10 indicators of business regulation that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in business start-up, operation, trade, taxation, and closure. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates. Since 2003 Doing Business has inspired or informed more than 113 reforms around the world.