Myanmar improves ranking in annual World Bank report

Improvements to Myanmar’s regulatory environment have helped it to move up one place on the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report.

Myanmar was ranked 170th out of 190 economies for the ease of doing business, up from 171 last year, the World Bank said in a statement on October 26 to mark the release of the report.

“Myanmar has improved its business regulatory environment over the past year through reforms on business registration and the enactment of a law that allows the establishment of a new credit bureau,” the World Bank said.

It said Myanmar had made starting a business easier by reducing the cost of registration and simplifying the process by eliminating the need to submit a reference letter and a police clearance to incorporate a company.

The establishment of the credit bureau would improve the credit information system, it added.

However, the report noted that foreign trade had been made more difficult because of higher costs and delays due to congestion at the port of Yangon.

“Myanmar is steadily making progress in creating a business environment that will help the country sustain its strong pace of growth,” said World Bank country manager for Myanmar, Mr Abdoulaye Seck. “Pursuing business reforms will help the country create a vibrant private sector and eventually, more jobs and better income for the people of Myanmar,” he said.

The Doing Business report for the first time included a gender dimension in three of the 10 topics covered – Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts – and found that no such barriers existed in Myanmar.

The report said more than two-thirds of the 25 economies in East Asia and the Pacific had in the last year implemented 45 reforms to make it easier to do business, up from 28 reforms the previous year.

Four regional economies were ranked among the world’s top ten for the ease of doing business. They were New Zealand (1st), Singapore (2nd), Hong Kong (4th) and South Korea (5th).