Slight improvement in Doing Business ranking

“Myanmar made trading across borders easier by reducing the number of documents required for exports and imports,” the report said.

Myanmar is ranked 177th in the latest survey, among 189 economies.

Doing business in Myanmar is now better than in several countries in Africa like Congo (178th), Guinea-Bissau (179th) and Libya (188th). At the bottom of the list is Eritrea.

Aside from improvement in border trade, Myanmar also saw its rankings in two more sub-categories - Dealing with Construction Permits and Getting Electricity.  Now, it takes businesses 128 days to get a construction permit and 91 days to get power supply. 

Myanmar however showed no change in the remaining 7 sub-categories. While there was no change in the areas of Starting a Business, Registering Property, Protecting Minority Investors, and Enforcing Contracts, its rankings dropped in the areas of Getting Credit, Paying Taxes and Resolving Insolvency.

The report tracked improvements implemented during June 1, 2013, to June 1, 2014.

Among 25 economies in East Asia and the Pacific, since 2005, 96 per cent of economies in the region have implemented business regulatory reforms in the areas measured by Doing Business. Together, the 25 economies recorded 240 reforms making it easier to do business.

Vietnam implemented the largest number of reforms in the region during this period, with 23, followed by Indonesia with 22 and China with 20. These countries are among the 50 economies worldwide that have implemented the most reforms making it easier to do business in the past decade.

Singapore has the highest global ranking in doing business. Also among the top 10 are New Zealand; Hong Kong, China; South Korea; and Australia. 

In this year, Laos, 148th from 155th last year, was lauded for the improved access to credit by implementing a modern, unified, notice-based collateral registry. In addition, Lao also strengthened minority investor protections by introducing requirements for directors to disclose in detail their conflicts of interest to the other board members and for companies to promptly disclose related-party transactions to the Securities Commission and to include the information in their annual reports.

Ranked 78th from 72nd last year, Vietnam improved its credit information system by establishing a new credit bureau. And it made paying taxes less costly for companies by reducing the corporate income tax rate.

Thailand, 26th from 28th, made dealing with construction permits less time-consuming by introducing a fast-track approval process for building permits for smaller buildings.