| Doing Business 2009: Egypt Leads on Reforms in MENA, Advances 11 Ranks in the Global Rankings on the Ease of Doing Business The Middle East and North Africa region continues to ease the regulatory burden of doing business, according to Doing Business 2009—the sixth in an annual series of reports published by IFC and the World Bank. For a third time, Egypt is one of the top 10 economies that reformed their business regulations. Egypt, which was the world’s top reformer of business regulations last year, continued to lead, with improvements in six of the 10 areas the report covers. Egypt advanced 11 places in the global rankings to reach the 114th rank on the ease of doing business. According to Doing Business 2009, Egypt made starting up a business easier by reducing the paid-in minimum capital requirement by more than 80%, abolishing bar association fees, and automating tax registration. A new building code introduced in 2008 is aimed at reducing the procedures and time required to deal with construction permits by establishing a single window for processing construction-related approvals. Simplified administrative procedures for registering property and new time limits have reduced the time to transfer property in Cairo from 193 days to 72. The port of Alexandria continued to upgrade its facilities and sped customs clearance, reducing the time to export by 1 day and the time to import by 3. New listing rules for the Cairo Stock Exchange strengthened protections for minority shareholders: now an independent body must assess transactions between interested parties before they are approved. And thanks to new regulations issued by the Central Bank of Egypt, borrowers have the right to inspect their data in the private credit bureau.
“Economies need rules that are efficient, easy to use, and accessible to all who use them. Otherwise, businesses are trapped in the unregulated, informal economy, where they have less access to finance and hire fewer workers, and where workers lack the protection of labor law,” said Michael Klein, World Bank/IFC Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development. Credit bureau enhancements that improve access to credit saw activity in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and the West Bank and Gaza. Saudi Arabia ranked first in the world in the category of ease of "registering property", while five Gulf countries made the top ten in the category where "paying taxes" is made easy. Singapore tops the global rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third consecutive year. New Zealand is runner-up, with the United States third. Doing Business ranks economies based on 10 indicators of business regulation that record the time and cost to meet government requirements in starting and operating a business, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. The rankings do not reflect such areas as macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates. Improvements in Yemen and Djibouti
Yemen witnessed one of the boldest reforms recorded in this year’s Doing Business report, and resulted in an advance of 25 positions in the global aggregate rankings for Yemen. The country reduced the world’s second-highest minimum capital requirement and launching a one-stop shop for business start-ups. The new one-stop shop makes it possible to complete business start-up at a single location and easier to obtain a license from the municipality and to register with the chamber of commerce and the tax office. Djibouti improved its port administration and reduced the number of documents required for exporting and importing. That cut the time needed to import from 18 days to 16, the documents needed to export from 8 to 5, and those needed to import from 6 to 5.
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