VietNamNet Bridge – This year, Vietnam is ranked 99 out of 189 economies, signaling that the country needs to do even more in order to improve its position on the list.

A new World Bank (WB) Group report finds that Vietnam strengthened investor protection and improved access to credit to make doing business easier for local firms between July 2012 and June 2013.

Although the report finds that Vietnam has implemented 21 reforms – the highest number in East Asia Pacific – since 2005, the country’s ranking has not improved much over the years.

“Vietnam has undertaken important reforms during the past nine years to strengthen its business environment, but much work still needs to be done to sustain its competitiveness, especially in adopting international best practices in regulating businesses,” said Wendy Werner, investment climate advisory services manager for East Asia and the Pacific at IFC, a member of the WB Group.

In the past year, Vietnam strengthened investor protection by introducing greater disclosure requirements for listed companies in cases of related-party transactions. In addition, the country granted the first private credit bureau license following the issuance of a decree in 2010 that laid down the legal framework for establishing such bureaus. Vietnam, however, made paying taxes more costly for companies by increasing employers’ social security contribution rate.

Across the globe, Singapore continues to provide the world’s most business-friendly regulatory environment for local entrepreneurs, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China. In the past year, 15 of 25 economies in the region implemented at least one regulatory reform making it easier to do business.

Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises finds that since 2005, 24 of 25 economies in East Asia and the Pacific have made their regulatory environment more business-friendly. Among the region’s economies, China made the greatest progress during that time in improving business regulation for local entrepreneurs.

Globally, the Philippines is among the 10 economies that improved the most in making regulation easier for businesses over the past year.

Source: VOV