The World Bank released its annual Doing Business report and Thailand probably won’t like what it sees. The Kingdom dropped three places from 46th to 49th in the “Doing Business 2016: Measuring Quality and Efficiency” survey that looks at business regulations in countries across the world and ranks them according to how easy they make doing business.
Areas Thailand performed well in included dealing with construction permits where it ranked 39th in the world, protecting minority investors where it ranked 36th, resolving insolvency where it ranked 49th, registering property where it ranked 57th and trading across borders where it ranked 57th worldwide. Getting credit and ease of starting a business are two areas where the country was rated poorly.
“Thailand is an attractive place to do business for Thai and foreign investors,” Ulrich Zachau, World Bank country director for Thailand, said according to Thailand Business News. “In the future, Thailand will have the opportunity to improve its business environment through reforms such as improving the quality of land administration index by digitizing and publishing the land registry.”
Only two other ASEAN countries outperformed Thailand in this year’s rankings. Singapore came in at first place again this year while Malaysia landed in 18th position. Other Asia-Pacific countries to make the top 20 included Hong Kong, fifth place, and Taiwan, which was 11th place.
While many countries in the region, especially in the ASEAN, struggled to crack to top 100, a good number did make noticeable improvements, according to the report. For instance, Myanmar saw the biggest improvement worldwide in ease of starting a business thanks to new rules and regulations while Vietnam and Indonesia also made positive strides this year in making it easier to start a business. The report added that a majority of the countries in East Asia and the Pacific are taking part in some sort of reforms to make doing business easier within their borders.
