OREANDA-NEWS. September 17, 2008. Over the last few years Belarus has secured a substantial advance in reforming business regulations, representative of the World Bank Group in Belarusian Craig Bell told media on September 16.

“Belarus has made quite major success in improving business environment. But there are still certain hindrances for businessmen. We hope these issues will be gradually resolved. The World Bank will continue providing the necessary support,” he said.

Earlier Craig Bell noted, “This year Belarus’ impressive results in the Doing Business rating show attempts of the country to introduce reforms and improve the business and investment climate. Stable and versatile reform efforts will continue Belarus’ advancement in Doing Business rating”.

He reminded, according to Doing Business 2009, the sixth annual report published by the World Bank and IFC, Belarus entered the list of ten top countries – regulatory reformers.

From June 2007 to June 2008 Belarus carried out reforms in six out of ten areas surveyed by the report to take the fourth place in the list of the top ten regulatory reformers. The country moved up from the 115th to 85th position in the overall ease of doing business.

According to the report, lending opportunities have been facilitated in Belarus thanks to removing the requirement for providing minimal loan records. Starting a business became easier thanks to the establishment of a unified register and the halving of the authorised capital minimum.

Belarus became one of the leading reformers in real estate registration by introducing a unified state register for real estate, rights to and deals with real estate. Real estate registration time was decreased from 231 days to 21 days.

The time required for getting construction permits shrank by 140 days on the average thanks to new official deadlines for giving pre-approvals.

A new Customs Code simplified trade in Belarus. Belarus eased the tax burden by annulling some duties and streamlining small business taxation.

According to the World Bank, the top 10 countries with the most active legal reforms are Azerbaijan, Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Egypt. 23 countries of the 25 Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries implemented 62 legal reforms or over 25% of the total number of reforms worldwide.

Singapore has been topping the global ranking on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for three years in a row. Singapore is followed by New Zealand and the United States. The top-ranked countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are Georgia (15), Estonia (22), Lithuania (28), Latvia (29), and Azerbaijan (33).

The Doing Business 2009 report ranks 181 economies with regard to the overall ease of doing business and uses 10 indicators highlighting business regulation by governments including the time and cost of business opening, transboundary trade, tax payment and business closing. The ratings leave out such areas as macroeconomic policy, the quality of the infrastructure, currency stability, investors and the crime rate.