Need to boost ease of doing business

The recommendations were made yesterday after Thailand’s ranking in the World Bank “Doing Business” report for 2016 fell from 46th place in 2015 to 49th among the 189 economies covered.

The lower ranking is due to the difficulty for companies, and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, to access credit, their lack of credit-bureau coverage, delays in or an absence of legislative enforcement, and the long procedure for facilitating the starting up of new firms, which involves many agencies, said Ulrich Zachau, country director of World Bank, Thailand.

The quality of the country’s juridical process, efficiency of the courts, the time it takes to register businesses, delays in legal enforcement, and the period required to get construction permits are all factors contributing to the lower ranking, he said.

He acknowledged, however, that the lower ranking for the Kingdom was also due to the adjustment of the World Bank Group’s methodology to focus more on measuring quality and efficiency. 

Zachau said Thailand’s overall score had actually risen this year to 71.42 points, but other countries had also improved – and at a faster rate than Thailand when it came to the implementation of many laws and short-cutting the processes related to many business-related aspects.

“Thailand is an attractive place to do business for Thai and foreign investors. In the future, Thailand will have the opportunity to improve its business environment through reforms such as improving the quality of the land-administration index by digitising and publishing the land registry,” he said.

Such reform could help improve Thailand’s competitiveness compared with other advanced middle-income countries that have pursued investment-climate reforms vigorously in recent years, he added.

Among the 10 areas of measurement, the Kingdom’s ranking only improved in terms of construction permits, while three areas – electricity access, property registration and contract enforcement – showed no change.

However, the country’s ranking dropped eight places when it involved tax payment: businesses in Thailand spent 264 hours per year on tax payments, against the 201.4-hour average in East Asia and the Pacific, and 177 hours among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

According to the “Doing Business 2016” report, most nations and territories have retained their position among the top 50 economies worldwide.

Singapore remains at the top of the global rankings, with the other top five performers worldwide being New Zealand, Denmark, South Korea and Hong Kong respectively.

In Asean, Thailand ranks third, after Singapore and Malaysia, which is in 18th place.

Other large economies in the region and their rankings are Taiwan (11th), Japan (34th), mainland China (84th), Vietnam (90th), the Philippines (103rd), Indonesia (109th), Cambodia (127th), Laos (134th) and Myanmar (162nd).

The report also mentioned that the East Asia region performed below the global average in resolving insolvency, enforcing contracts, starting a business, protecting minority investors, and registering property.

Registering a property transfer in the region takes 74 days on average, compared with a global average of 48 days.

For Thailand, the period for starting up a business totalled 27 days, despite some processes having been shortened, while the average time to start a business in 132 economies worldwide is less than 20 days.