For the Better
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced on Oct. 29 that Korea ranked fifth this year on the World Bank Doing Business Index, reaching a new high and joining the top 10 for four consecutive years.
Korea has climbed from 19th in 2009 and 16th in 2010, to eighth in 2011 and 2012 and seventh in 2013. This year, it is second to no G20 country, and second only to New Zealand and Denmark among OECD members.
Singapore beat them all, followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Denmark. Korea was followed by Norway, the United States, and Great Britain. Canada, Japan, China, and Russia took the 16th, 29th, 90th, and 62nd spots.
The assessment is a scenario-based evaluation of 10 specific business environments covering the entire enterprise life cycle. The 10 criteria are related to business establishment, construction approval, power supply, property rights registration, financing, minor investor protection, tax payment, customs administration, legal dispute settlement, and business liquidation. It measures the ease of doing business based on the assumption that a person sets up a company in the most populated town of his or her country by investing capital 10 times its GNI.
This year, Korea moved up in the business establishment (34th to 17th), construction approval (18th to 12th), power supply (2nd to 1st), minor investor protection (52nd to 21st), and business liquidation (15th to fifth) categories. But the country fell in the property registration (75th to 79th), financing (13th to 36th), and dispute settlement (2nd to 4th) categories. It remained at 25th and 3rd in tax payment and customs administration, respectively.