Phl drops in WB business rankings

MANILA, Philippines — Despite reforms aimed at improving the business climate, the Philippines’ global ranking in ease of doing business has dropped significantly, based on a World Bank (WB) report.

In the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2018 report, the country’s ranking plunged 14 notches to 113th from the previous 99th spot across 190 economies.

The World Bank, however, said the current ranking is not comparable to the one published in the Doing Business 2017 report “because of methodology refinements.”

On the distance-to-frontier metric basis, the Philippines’ score saw a slight improvement as it went from 58.32 in Doing Business 2017 to 58.74 in Doing Business 2018.

A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions.

“The Philippines is making steady progress in carrying out reforms that can make it easier for entrepreneurs to start and operate a business,” said Rita Ramalho, acting director of the World Bank’s Global Indicators Group.

“The focus of the Doing Business report is on promoting regulatory reform that strengthens the ability of the private sector to create jobs, lift people out of poverty and create more opportunities for the economy to prosper,” Ramalho added.

According to the World Bank, the country stands out regionally in the Resolving Insolvency component, with a global rank of 59th.

Over the past year, the report said the Philippines also implemented two key reforms to improve the business climate for small and medium enterprises. These are in the areas of getting electricity connection and paying taxes.

The Philippines reduced the time to get an electricity connection by implementing a new asset management system and by creating a new scheduling and planning office.

The country also made paying taxes easier by introducing a new electronic system for payment and collection of housing development fund contributions.

Despite these continued reforms, however, the World Bank said small and medium-sized businesses still face significant regulatory challenges in the Philippines, leaving room for further improvements especially in the areas of starting a business, enforcing contracts and protecting minority investors.

“Moreover, the pace of reforms is faster in many other countries, including in several regional neighbors,” it said.

Among economies in East Asia and Pacific, the report indicated that a total of 45 reforms to make it easier to do business were implemented by 14 of the region’s 25 economies in the past year.

With eight reforms each, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand have the highest number of reforms.

Globally, New Zealand topped the Doing Business 2018 report, followed by Singapore, Denmark, Korea and Hong Kong.

Completing the top 10 are the US, UK, Norway, Georgia and Sweden.

Trade Secretary and National Competitiveness Council chair Ramon Lopez earlier said the country aims to move up within the top 20 global rankings in doing business by 2020.

The Doing Business report is an annual publication of the World Bank, which reviews regulations that enhance or constrain business activity.