The New Nation - Internet Edition

Xinhua, Washington

Regulatory reforms are gaining momentum worldwide, reaching record numbers this year, according to a report released by the World Bank on Thursday. Doing Business 2009, the sixth in a series of annual reports published by IFC and the World Bank, identifies 239 reforms between June 2007 and June 2008 that make it easier to do business in 113 economies.

For the fifth year in a row, Eastern Europe and Central Asia led the world's regions, with more than 90 percent of its countries making reforms. And the trend is moving eastward as newcomers join the list of economies making the most reforms, said the report.

Azerbaijan is the world's leading reformer of business regulations this year, with improvements in seven of the 10 areas studied by the report.

Africa also had a record year for regulatory reforms, with 28 countries completing 58 reforms that make it easier to do business-more than in any other year. And three of the world's top 10 economies that reformed their business regulations are from the region.

The top 10 are, in order, Azerbaijan, Albania, the Kyrgyz Republic, Belarus, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Egypt.

Doing Business ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates, said the report. Singapore leads the global rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third consecutive year. New Zealand is runner-up, and the United States third. Bahrain and Mauritius join the ranks of the top 25 this year.