World Bank recently published a new report regarding the easiest country to do business in the world for 2012.
The countries are ranked on their ease of doing business, from scale 1 – 183. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to start and operate a local firm.
These index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 9 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic.
Malaysia is at position 18th up to 3 positions from 21st in 2011. The top 3 countries namely Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand manage to retain its position as per 2011 rankings.
The table below is the rank of the top 30 countries.
| Country | Ease of Doing Business Rank |
|---|---|
| Singapore | 1 |
| Hong Kong SAR, China | 2 |
| New Zealand | 3 |
| United States | 4 |
| Denmark | 5 |
| Norway | 6 |
| United Kingdom | 7 |
| Korea, Rep. | 8 |
| Iceland | 9 |
| Ireland | 10 |
| Finland | 11 |
| Saudi Arabia | 12 |
| Canada | 13 |
| Sweden | 14 |
| Australia | 15 |
| Georgia | 16 |
| Thailand | 17 |
| Malaysia | 18 |
| Germany | 19 |
| Japan | 20 |
| Latvia | 21 |
| Macedonia, FYR | 22 |
| Mauritius | 23 |
| Estonia | 24 |
| Taiwan, China | 25 |
| Switzerland | 26 |
| Lithuania | 27 |
| Belgium | 28 |
| France | 29 |
| Portugal | 30 |
For more detail information on the ranking kindly proceed to World Bank Ease of Doing Business webpage.