Singapore ranks the world’s best place to run a business for eightconsecutive years, according to a recent World Bank annualcompetitiveness survey.
Rounding off the top five are Hong Kong , New Zealand , the US and Denmark .
Another Southeast Asian country to make the top ten is Malaysia ,while China is unlikely to be happy with its rating, falling fivenotches this year to 96th place.
African countries like Chad , the Central African Republic and Libya populated the bottom of the list.
But a rising African country, Rwanda , took the honours as the mostimproved since 2005. It was praised for its efforts to boost propertyregistration and for simplifying trading and tax procedures.
Countries credited with progressing the most in the last five yearsinclude Rwanda (ranked 32), Russia (92), Ukraine (112) and thePhilippines (108).
Russia and Rwanda bothjumped 20 places from last year, Ukraine and the Philippine gained25 and 30 places respectively.
The “Doing Business2014″ report said many countries are making it easier for people tostart and run businesses, with low-income economies moving more quicklythan larger ones.
In many areas, it added, there hasbeen remarkable progress in removing some of the biggest bureaucraticobstacles to private sector activity.
The rankingsfocus on what a small or medium-sized business faces in its homecountry, as opposed to how a multinational giant would fare in the sameenvironment.
The countries are scored on a range ofissues, from how many days and procedures does it take to start abusiness, to the length of time to get a power hook-up, to the ease ofcredit and the cost of exporting or importing a container.
The data was based on a survey of more than 10,000 professionals,mostly people who routinely help administer or give advice on legal andregulatory issues in a country.-VNA