November 1 (SeeNews) - Serbia's infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic said the government aims to conquer a position among the top 20 countries in the annual Doing Business ranking compiled by the World Bank Group.
Serbia has climbed four positions to 43rd place in the Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report published on Tuesday. New Zealand leads the ranking, followed by Singapore and Denmark. Macedonia ranks 11th and is the only country in Southeast Europe that is part of the top 20 list in this year's edition of the report. The second best destination for doing business in SEE is Slovenia, which ranks 37th, seven spots down from last year, followed by Kosovo in 40th place, Montenegro in 42nd place, and Bulgaria in 50th place compared to 38th spot last year.
Serbia is expected to improve its position further after the launch of the cadastral reform that will make property registration easier, Mihajlovic said in a statement late on Tuesday following the release of the report.
"Our goal is to continue to improving our rating, to be in the top five in the field of construction permits, and I believe that with the cadastral reform and other reforms we work on, we can reach the top 20 in the world," Mihajlovic said.
Serbia ranks 10th when it comes to dealing with construction permits, as it now takes five days to get an approval for construction works. However, Serbia underperforms in the area of Getting Electricity. It takes 125 days to connect to the electricity grid, much more than the average of 79 days across OECD high-income economies, according to the Doing Business 2018 report.
Therefore, the Serbian government will also work to cut the time needed to connect to the power grid, Mihajlovic said on Tuesday during a news conference streamed online.