October 26 (SeeNews) - Serbia ranks among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of improving their business environment in three or more areas in 2015/2016, according to this year’s edition of the World Bank Group’s ease of doing business annual report.
Serbia has climbed to 47th position on the back of three business reforms implemented by the country over the past year, the World Bank said in its Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All report released on Tuesday by its Serbian office.
In last year's ranking, Serbia was in the 59th spot.
“Serbia has been steadily improving the business environment for local entrepreneurs in the past decade,” said Thomas Lubeck, IFC Regional Manager for the Western Balkans. “This strong commitment needs to continue both in terms of improving legislation and increasing the operational efficiency of government agencies. This will help provide more equal opportunity for local businesses.”
Over the past year, Serbia carried out reforms in three areas: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and registering property. The process for starting a business simplified, considerably reducing the time needed to register from 12 days to 7 days. This compares well with the global average of 21 days for starting a business.
While there is progress in terms of the regulatory environment, the report also highlights potential areas of improvement for Serbia. For example, it takes 125 days to get an electricity connection, compared to the global average of 93 days. It also takes 226 hours to comply with local tax obligations, which is more than the regional average of 222 hours.
This year’s report includes, for the first time, a gender dimension in three indicators: starting a business, registering property and enforcing contracts. The Europe and Central Asia region, which includes Serbia, is the only region where there are no barriers against women in the areas measured by the report.
The paying taxes indicator set has been expanded as well to include measures of post-filing processes relating to tax audits and VAT refund. Serbia performs significantly better on these measures, compared to other economies in the region.
For example, it takes 4 hours to comply with VAT refunds in Serbia, which is faster than in Australia or Singapore. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, compliance time for VAT refunds is high, while in Kosovo taxpayers spend 30 hours complying with the process of claiming a VAT refund, the World Bank report found.
The top ranked economy from the region of Southeast Europe (SEE) is Macedonia, in 10th position, two spots up from last year. Thanks to past reforms it now takes an entrepreneur in Macedonia only two days to start a business, which is significantly less than the regional average of 10 days.
The second best destination for doing business in SEE is Slovenia, which ranked 30th, one spot down from last year, followed by Romania in 36th place, compared to 37th in 2015, and Bulgaria in 39th place compared to 38th last year.
Following are details about the SEE countries covered in the report:
Country |
Ease of doing business (rank) |
Starting a business (rank) |
Dealing with construction permits (rank) |
Serbia |
47 |
47 |
36 |
Albania |
58 |
46 |
106 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina |
81 |
174 |
170 |
Bulgaria |
39 |
82 |
48 |
Croatia |
43 |
95 |
128 |
Kosovo |
60 |
13 |
129 |
Macedonia |
10 |
4 |
11 |
Moldova |
44 |
44 |
165 |
Montenegro |
51 |
58 |
93 |
Romania |
36 |
62 |
95 |
Slovenia |
30 |
49 |
80 |
The report covers 190 economies. It measures regulations affecting the life of a business, such as starting a business, dealing with construction permits, acquiring electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.