Georgia and Romania made most business centered reforms

The World Bank and the International Financial Corporation (IFC) have announced on Wednesday, September 6, the „Doing Business 2007- How to Reform” report. This report evaluates Romania as second to Greece from the 175 countries that have adopted in 2005-2006 the changes meant to aid business development. The Republic of Moldova is mentioned in the countries that have done at least a reform from the 10 mentioned in the report. The reforms evaluated were directed towards the simplifying business licensing and trading, easing access to credit, increasing labor market flexibility, and strengthening investor protection. According to a press release of the World Bank Office in Chisinau, the changes meant to ease business in the Republic Moldova are the decrease or authorizations required to perform commercial and entrepreneurship activities from 400 to 128 and the reduction of the value added tax from 20% in 2004 to 18% in 2006. The report states that the top 10 reformers are, in order, Georgia, Romania, Mexico, China, Peru, France, Croatia, Guatemala, Ghana, and Tanzania. In another 13 economies - Armenia, Australia, Bulgaria, Czech republic, El Salvador, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria and Rwanda – three or more reforms have been registered. Reformers simplified business regulations, strengthened property rights, eased tax burdens, increased access to credit, and reduced the cost of exporting and importing. Doing Business 2007 also ranks 175 economies on the ease of doing business—covering 20 more economies than last year’s report. The top 30 economies in the world, in order, are Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong/China, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Norway, Ireland, Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Lithuania, Estonia, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Korea, Latvia, Malaysia, Israel, St. Lucia, Chile, South Africa and Austria. Romania is ranked 47th. The rankings track indicators of the time and cost to meet government requirements in business startup, operation, trade, taxation, and closure. They do not track variables such as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates. The report is done at a global level, but only the economies that have significantly changed the course of business have qualified as “reformers”, 23 economies overall. Doing Business project is based on the activities of over 5000 local specialists – business consultants, lawyers, accountants, officials of the public administration and personnel from the academic sphere from the whole world have offered methodological support and reviewed the material.