Overview

 

Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, a World Bank Group flagship publication, is the 12th in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies-from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe-and over time.

Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year's ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included in this year's ranking.

Data in Doing Business 2015 are current as of June 1, 2014. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why. This year's report introduces a notable expansion of several indicator sets and a change in the calculation of rankings.

 

Main Findings

 

Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency finds that entrepreneurs in 123 economies saw improvements in their local regulatory framework last year. Between June 2013 and June 2014, the report, which measures 189 economies worldwide, documented 230 business reforms, with 145 reforms aimed at reducing the complexity and cost of complying with business regulation, and 85 reforms aimed at strengthening legal institutions - with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the largest number of such reforms. Read about business reforms.

 

Tajikistan, Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Azerbaijan, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates are among the economies that improved the most in 2013/2014 in areas tracked by Doing Business. Together, these 10 top improvers implemented 40 regulatory reforms making it easier to do business.

            

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 5 of the 10 top improvers in 2013/14. The region also accounts for the largest number of regulatory reforms making it easier to do business in the past year-75 of the 230 worldwide. More than 70% of its economies carried out at least one such reform.

            

For the first time this year, Doing Business collected data for 2 cities in 11 economies with more than 100 million inhabitants. The economies are: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The added city enables a subnational comparison and benchmarking against other large cities. Differences between cities are more common in indicators measuring the steps, time and cost to complete a standardized transaction where local agencies play a larger role, finds the report.

            

Case studies highlighting good practices in 8 of the areas measured by Doing Business indicator sets are featured in the report: the growing efficiency of company registries in starting a business; zoning and urban planning in dealing with construction permits; measuring quality of land administration in registering property; importance of registries in getting credit; going beyond related-party transactions in protecting minority investors; trends before and after the financial crisis in paying taxes; judicial efficiency supporting freedom of contract in enforcing contracts; and measuring strength of insolvency laws in resolving insolvency. See all case studies

 

The report this year expands the data in three of the 10 topics covered, with further plans to expand on five topics in next year's report. The Doing Business rankings are now based on a distance to the frontier measure. Each economy from the 189 economies measured is evaluated based on how close their business regulations are to the best global practices. A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions.

 

 

The newly appointed Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Russia, Akmal Kamalov handed over the copies of his credentials to Russia's Secretary of State, Deputy Foreign Minister, Grigory Karasin, Uzbek Foreign Ministry said Oct.28.

During the meeting, Kamalov and Karasin discussed the topical issues on the agenda and reiterated the mutual interest of Russia and Uzbekistan to further strengthen and expand the bilateral cooperation.

Currently, the legal framework of the Uzbek-Russian cooperation is comprised of nearly 200 documents, including the strategic partnership agreement (June 16, 2004) and a treaty on the allied relationship (Nov.14, 2005).

Russia is the largest trade partner of Uzbekistan with nearly 30 percent share in the total volume of the country's foreign trade turnover.

Around 885 Russian-Uzbek companies operate in Uzbekistan, moreover, offices of 102 Russian enterprises have been accredited in the country. Over 489 companies with Uzbek capital operate in Russia.

Russia and Uzbekistan actively cooperate in the sphere of fuel and energy complex.

Largest Russian oil and gas companies successfully and effectively operate in Uzbekistan.

 

Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) is set to open centres at Uzbekistan to address the problem of high unemployment in the region, facilitate trade and improve bilateral relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

This will be EDI's first centre in central Asia. EDI -- a national resource institute engaged in entrepreneurship education, research and training - is successfully running entrepreneurship development centres at Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

EDI had submitted a proposal for Uzbekistan centres to the Ministry of External Affairs in 2004. Senior faculty member Dr Sanjay Pal said: "MEA has considered our request. Work on these upcoming centres has already started and they'll be inaugurated by April 2015."

The new centres will conduct grassroots entrepreneurship programmes such as cluster development, new enterprise creation, identification of business opportunities, HR motivational inputs, finance, marketing, technology, business planning, performance improvement and communication. Pal said that EDI will transfer all intellectual and technical properties created in the last 30 years to the new centres.

EDI will house its headquarters at Tashkent State University, one of the largest economic varsities in central Asia, and three regional centres at Samarkand, Fergana and Syrdarya. The institute will soon appoint director and other faculty members of Uzbekistan centres. It has also started their two-month training session from October.

 

 

Prominent representatives of the Central Asian diplomatic community, business, and academia will return to Chicago to participate in the 10^th Annual Silk Road Conference scheduled on Monday, April 27, 2015, at Illinois Institute of Technology's Kent School of Law Auditorium, 565 West Adams St., in Chicago.

This is the fifth consecutive year that this event has been held In Chicago and at IIT.

The event will be highlighted by pre-conference business and educational activities.

Organized by the Central Asian Productivity Research Center, a strategic alliance of professionals representing government, business, and academia from nations along the Silk Road region, the conference is sponsored by Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois and supported by several foreign business organizations.

The CAPRC, which was founded in Turkey and Azerbaijan in May and June 1999, celebrated its 15^th anniversary during the 2014 conference.

Registration is US$50.00, including a networking breakfast, a specially designed business lunch, and the Diplomatic Reception.

 

For registration and information: lepinske@sbcglobal.net

PH: 708-246-5556