The latest World Bank report ranks Malaysia at No.18 for ease of doing business. This is an improvement from last year’s ranking of No.20.
The report by the World Bank was derived from the World Bank Group’s flagship publication, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency. The publication presents quantitative signs on business guidelines and the security of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies. And among these 189 economies, Malaysia was ranked at No.20, putting the nation ahead of countries such as Taiwan, Switzerland and Japan, who were ranked at No.19, No.20 and No.29 respectively.
The report looked at 11 areas of the life of a business, but only 10 were highlighted in this year’s ranking in the ease of doing business. The area that was not included in this year’s ranking is labour market regulation. The ranking is based on the distance to frontier (DTF) score, which according to Doing Business, “assesses the absolute level of regulatory performance and how it improves over time.” The DTF shows the distance of each economy to the “frontier.” Below are the 10 areas that were included in this year’s ranking, and Malaysia’s ranking for each of the 10 areas.
- Starting a business – Malaysia ranked at No.13
- Dealing with construction permits – Malaysia ranked at No.28
- Getting electricity – Malaysia ranked at No. 27
- Registering property – Malaysia ranked at No.75
- Getting credit – Malaysia ranked at No. 23
- Protecting minority investors – Malaysia ranked at No. 5
- Paying taxes – Malaysia ranked at No. 32
- Trading across borders – Malaysia ranked at No. 11
- Enforcing contracts – Malaysia ranked at No. 29
- Resolving insolvency– Malaysia ranked at No. 36
As one can see, Malaysia did particularly well in three areas; protecting minority interest (No.5), starting a business (No.13) and trading across borders (No.11). According to the report, Malaysia DTF score for starting a business is 94.90! Previously, it took six days to start a business in Malaysia. That time has now been reduced to 5.5 days. The fact that Malaysia ranked very well for protecting minority investors is something that could appeal to foreign investors.
But, Malaysia has a lot to improve on for areas such as registering property, paying taxes, resolving insolvency and enforcing contracts. According to the New Straits Times, some of the areas that Malaysia needs to improve on will be addressed at the next Special Task Force to Facilitate Business meeting, which will take place next month.
Interesting in reading the full report? You can access it here.
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