Astana, October 16: Kazakhstan has moved up seven places to 49th positionout of 185 economies reviewed in the World Bank annual survey:

“Doing Business2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises”.

The tenth edition in the “Doing Business” series, the 2013 report compares business regulation across 185 economies worldwide, by assessing how domestic companies are impacted by regulation across ten key areas including starting a business, getting credit, protecting investors and enforcing contracts.

Kazakhstan is among the ten countries showing most improvement since last year. Poland gained the top position on this scale, for four regulatory reforms making it easier to register property, pay taxes, enforce contracts and resolve insolvency. The other economies showing the most improvement in ease of doing business were Burundi, Costa Rica, Greece, Mongolia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

In the regional listing for Central Europe and Central Asia, Kazakhstan ranked seventh out of 24 economies for ease of doing business. The highest ranking achieved by Kazakhstan on any of the ten measures was tenth place for the protection of investors (unchanged from last year), while most progress was made on the measure relating to starting a business, where Kazakhstan moved to 25th place from 55th, on the strength of abolishing the minimum capital requirement.

Strong improvement was also registered on the ease of getting credit, where Kazakhstan advanced to 83rd position from 97th the previous year, as a result of a new law changing the regulation of the rehabilitation procedure under bankruptcy legislation and specifying several conditions under which secured creditors can apply for relief during the procedure.

There was a marginal improvement to 80th place from 81st in relation to the ease of getting electricity, while Kazakhstan retained an unchanged 28th place on two other key parameters: registering property and enforcing contracts.

Singapore topped the ranking as the easiest place in the world to do business for the seventh consecutive year, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China, New Zealand, the United States and Denmark. Georgia was a new entrant to the top ten.

Over the ten years spanned by the series, 80 economies have implemented close to 2,000 business regulation reforms, two-thirds of which have aimed at reducing the cost and complexity of regulatory processes. Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the region which has implemented most improvements, to overtake East Asia and the Pacific as the world’s second most business-friendly region.

The World Bank reports that a growing body of research has mapped the positive effects of simpler business regulation on a range of economic outcomes, such as job creation and a faster pace of new business growth.