TBILISI, October 24, 2019 — Europe and Central Asia is home to two of the world’s top 20 best places to do business – Georgia (7th) and North Macedonia (17th) with Georgia ranking 1st in the region. Economies in the region accelerated an already strong momentum to improve their business climates, enacting 56 reforms and leading globally in reforms on paying taxes and enforcing contracts, the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 study “Comparing Business Regulation in 190 Economies” says.
For starting a business, for example, Georgia leads alongside with New Zealand in having the lowest number of procedures required (1). The same applies for the number of procedures necessary for registering property, wherein Georgia shares the 1st place with Norway and Portugal, while also being number 1, alongside Qatar, for the least time required for said procedure.
“The Doing Business 2020 report commends Georgia for dealing with construction permits, an effort which improved building quality control by increasing public access to information. Georgia is also highlighted in categories of starting business and registering property,” said Sebastian Molineus, World Bank Regional Director for the South Caucasus. “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Georgia with these impressive results and to reiterate the World Bank’s commitment and support to the Government on consolidating the ongoing reforms.”
Furthermore, the report points to Georgia as the economy establishing best regulatory performance on a number of the indicators it measures, including number of procedures to start a business, number of procedures and time required to register property and others. The very strong ranking reflects the country’s continued efforts, including being one of only five countries globally to have been featured on the list of top 10 improvers over three consecutive cycles.
The region implemented the most reforms world-wide in the areas of paying taxes, as 22 economies in the region now allow electronic filing of taxes and enforcing contracts. The region stands out with the most efficient commercial judicial system, as well as the ease of registering property: it costs 2.7% of property value on average to transfer a property, less than the 4.2% average among OECD high-income economies.
“The economies of Europe and Central Asia continue to make significant progress in enabling entrepreneurship and promoting economic growth,” said Santiago Croci Downes, Program Manager of the Doing Business Unit. “As the reform momentum builds, economies that lag behind can learn from the good practices adopted by their neighbors.”
Europe and Central Asia has also performed well over long run, as numerous countries have lowered paid-in minimum capital requirements and improved credit reporting systems over the 17 years of Doing Business study.
The full report and its datasets are available at www.doingbusiness.org
