Doing business ranking falls: WB
CAMBODIA had another poor showing in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report. The Kingdom ranks 131 out of 190 countries this year, dropping four places in the index in what economists said was an indication that the country was struggling to keep up with the pace of reforms in more advanced economies.
New Zealand and Singapore occupied the top two spots of the global ranking report released yesterday, which measures the business regulatory environment worldwide. Malaysia and Thailand ranked 23 and 46 respectively, while Laos came in slightly lower than Cambodia at 139, and Myanmar occupied the last spot in the region at 170.
The data show that starting a business remains a challenge in Cambodia, with the Kingdom ranking 180 – the worst in the region – in the category due to onerous startup procedures. The report said the average time to complete all the steps necessary to start a legal business had grown to 99 days on average, 12 more than needed a year ago.
“Cambodia made starting a business more difficult by increasing the time required to register and by requiring companies to submit evidence of capital deposit a f t e r re g i s t ra t i on,” t he report said.
The low ranking in the category comes as a blow, given former commerce minister Sun Chanthol’s boast late last year that recent reforms, such as the roll out of online CONTINUED
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