Vietnam carried out three reforms during the past year, two fewer compared to the Doing Business 2018 report.

Vietnam has moved down one notch from the 68th to 69th place out of 190 economies in the World Bank’s 2019 Ease of Doing Business ranking, although its score went up 1.59 points compared to a year earlier to 68.36 out of the maximum 100 points.

​According to the report, economies in the East Asia and Pacific region continued their strong reform agendas, carrying out 43 reforms in the past year to improve the ease of doing business for domestic small and medium enterprises.

Of the region’s 25 economies, two are among the world’s top 10 ranked economies – Singapore (in 2nd place) and Hong Kong SAR, China, which moves up one spot to the fourth place.

China is among this year’s top 10 improvers. With a single-year record of seven reforms in the past year, China advanced to 46th place in the global ranking. Malaysia also made a notable improvement by regaining its place in the world’s top 20 economies, moving up nine places to 15th rank.

In ASEAN, Myanmar and Timor-Leste were ranked the lowest, standing at 171st and 178th, respectively, while Indonesia stood at 73rd, the Philippines 124th and Thailand 27th. 

Vietnam along with Indonesia carried out three reforms each during the past year. The former has made two fewer reforms compared to the Doing Business 2018 report. In Vietnam, improvements were made to make it easier to enforce contracts, pay taxes and start a business. 

“East Asia and Pacific region has made significant progress in enabling entrepreneurship and private enterprise. As the reform momentum continues building up in the region, those economies which lag behind have the opportunity to learn from the good practices adopted by their neighbors,” said Rita Ramalho, senior manager of the World Bank’s Global Indicators Group, which produces the report.

Since Doing Business began in 2003, Starting a Business has been the most common area of reform in East Asia and the Pacific. 

As a result, the average time to start a business in the region has been almost halved to 28 days, from 50 days in 2003, and the cost has been significantly reduced from 59% of the income per capita in 2003 to 19% now. 

Hanoitimes