Laos rolls out reforms to improve business environment
Laos rolls out reforms to improve business environment
A lthough Laos has rolled out reforms this year, other countries have reformed faster, so that Laos' ranking in the Ease of Doing Business 2017 report has dropped to 139 fro m 136 the year before, according to the World Bank.
The reforms undertaken by Laos made the process of starting a business faster by implementing simplified procedures for obtaining a licence and a registered company seal, the report noted.
Laos also improved in the area of getting electricity by starting to fully record the duration and frequency of outages.
Economies in the East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) region are steadily making progress to ease the process of doing business, finds the World Bank Group's annual Ease of Doing Business report.
Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, released recently, found that over two-thirds of the EAP region's 25 economies imp lemented 45 reforms in the past year to make it easier to do business, compared to 28 reforms in the previous year.
Four econo mies in the East Asia and Pacific region rank among the top 10 economies globally in the Doing Business rankings. The top-ranked economies are New Zealand, followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Republic of Korea.
Laos is making progress on improving its business climate, but it is very important for Laos to continue these reforms to help the country sustain its high growth and make it more inclusive for businesses to flourish and create more jobs in the country, World Bank Country Manager for Laos Sally Burningham said.
In East Asia and the Pacifi c, notably, two economies - Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia, are among this year's top 10 improvers in the world.
New reforms across sectors in the East Asia and Pacific region are the stepping stones to enhance business activity. Despite a marked improvement from last year, economies in the region still have improvements to make in order to ease the business climate for local entrepreneurs, Manager of the Doing Business project, Rita Ramalho, said.
This year, for the first time, Doing Business includes a gender dimension in three of the 10 topics covered: Starting a Business, Registering Property, and Enforcing Contracts.
The report finds that, in those areas, few East Asia and Pacific economies have gender barriers, and no such barriers exist in Laos.
In addition, the Paying Taxes indicator has been expanded to cover post-filing processes, such as tax audits and Value Added Tax (VAT) refund. Many East Asia and Pacific economies perform well in these areas.
For instance, the VAT refund compliance time is less than five hours in five of the economies in the region, compared to the global average of 14 hours.
