Turkey rises in World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index

ISTANBUL

Turkey ranks 60th on the World Bank’s latest “ease of doing business” index, up nine places from last year.

The main reasons behind the upgrade are methodology refinements and improvements in Turkey’s business regulatory environment stemming from various reforms and data revisions, the World Bank said in a separate Turkey brief on Nov. 1.

Turkey’s score has gone from 67.19 in Doing Business 2017 to 69.14 in Doing Business 2018, using a comparable methodology, it noted.

“Over the last year Turkey has improved business regulations in absolute terms, as defined by the Doing Business indicators. This means that the country is approaching conformity with global regulatory standards,” the World Bank noted.

Last year governments in 119 economies carried out 264 business reforms to create jobs, attract investment and become more competitive, the World Bank Group’s latest “Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs” report stated.

To mark its 15th anniversary, the report noted that 3,188 business reforms have been carried out since the World Bank began monitoring the ease of doing business for domestic small and medium enterprises around the world.

In its Turkey brief, the Bank said the country had implemented substantive changes in the local regulatory framework.

“Turkey made registering property easier by lowering the costs of transferring property. It also strengthened access to credit by adopting a new law on secured transactions that establishes a unified collateral registry and allows out-of-court enforcement of collateral. Turkey also improved its credit reporting system by adopting a new law on personal data protection,” it stated.

“On the other hand, Turkey made resolving insolvency more difficult by suspending applications for postponement of bankruptcy procedures introduced both before and during the state of emergency,” it added.

In its annual ease of doing business rankings, New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark retained the top three positions respectively, followed by Republic of Korea, Hong Kong SAR, China, United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Georgia; and Sweden.

This year’s top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken, are Brunei Darussalam (for a second consecutive year), Thailand, Malawi, Kosovo, India, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Nigeria, Djibouti and El Salvador.