Kingdom's biz ranking drops a notch
Though it has slipped a bit, Thailand remains among the top 20 countries in terms of business-friendly regulations for domestic firms, Thai and World Bank officials said yesterday.
The Kingdom ranks 18th among 185 countries and third in Asean in the World Bank’s "Doing Business 2013" report, said Kirida Bhaopitrchitr, senior economist of the bank’s office in Thailand.
The report focuses on regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small to medium-sized domestic business. To compile the data, the World Bank and the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission contacted law and accounting firms asking their opinions.
Ten indicators were measured, including ease of starting a business, investor protection and insolvency resolution.
Kirida said Thailand’s ranking improved in three areas: registering property, paying taxes and enforcing contracts.
"Thailand’s ranking last year was 17th out of 183 countries. This year’s ranking is still good, and Thailand has been in the top 20 since 2004 when the report started," she said.
However, she said that while Thailand had reformed some of its regulations, other countries had done much better, so the Kingdom’s ranking dropped slightly to 18th.
The number of taxpaying days dropped to 22 a year from 23, suggesting improvement, she said. The cut in the corporate income-tax rate from 30 per cent to 23 per cent also contributed to the improvement.
Vunnaaporn Davahastin Suthapreda, senior adviser to the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission, said there was plenty of room to make paying taxes much easier. Paying taxes was still time-consuming for firms because of the number of tax rates.
A Commerce Ministry official said it now spent only one hour to register new firms but it took 29 days for them to register with the Ministry of Labour.
The report also shows that the procedures for resolving insolvency are still complicated.
In the overall business-friendliness ranking, Singapore remains the champion, followed by Hong Kong. Malaysia ranks 12th. Thailand ranks third in Asean and sixth in East Asia. Singapore continues to provide the world’s most business-friendly regulatory environments for local entrepreneurs for the 7th year in a row.
