October 26, 2016 - 11:51 AMT
Armenia improves standing in Doing Business report by 5 points

This year, Armenia is ranked 38th among 190 economies in 2017's Doing Business report and is 5 points up from last year’s Doing Business 2016 - 43rd spot overall - the World Bank said Tuesday, October 25.

In the latest report titled Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, Armenia also shows an improvement of 1.47 percentage points in distance to frontier score –73.63 compared to the previous year’s 72.16 percentage points.

The distance to frontier score aids in assessing the absolute level of regulatory performance and how it improves over time. This measure shows the distance of each economy to the “frontier,” which represents the best performance observed on each of the indicators across all economies in the Doing Business sample since 2005.

Armenia made it easier to do business in two areas measured by the report, including Getting Credit and Enforcing Contracts. Specifically, Armenia strengthened access to credit by adopting a new law on secured transactions that establishes a modern and centralized collateral registry, and improved its credit information system by adopting a new law on personal data protection. Armenia also made enforcing contracts easier by introducing a consolidated chapter regulating voluntary mediation and by establishing financial incentives for the parties to attempt mediation.

A record 137 economies around the world have adopted key reforms that make it easier to start and operate small and medium-sized businesses, says Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, the World Bank Group’s annual report on the ease of doing business.

The new report finds that developing countries carried out more than 75 percent of the 283 reforms in the past year, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over one-quarter of all reforms.

In its global country rankings of business efficiency, Doing Business 2017 awarded its coveted top spot to New Zealand, Singapore ranks second, followed by Denmark; Hong Kong SAR, China; Republic of Korea; Norway; United Kingdom; United States; Sweden; and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The world’s top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken, are Brunei Darussalam; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Belarus; Indonesia; Serbia; Georgia; Pakistan; United Arab Emirates (UAE); and Bahrain.

Doing Business data points to continued successes in the ease of doing business worldwide, as governments increasingly take up key business reforms. Starting a new business now takes an average of 21 days worldwide, compared with 46 days 10 years ago. Paying taxes in the Philippines involved 48 payments 10 years ago, compared to 28 now and in Rwanda, the time to register a property transfer has dropped from 370 days a decade ago to 12 days now.

This year’s Doing Business adds gender measures to three indicators - Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts - finding disparities in 38 economies. Of these, 23 economies impose more steps for married women than men to start a business. Sixteen limit women’s ability to own, use and transfer property. Doing Business finds that, in these economies, fewer women work in the private sector both as employers and employees.