Nepal drops five places, still second best in South Asia in ease of doing business

Nepal has faltered in regulatory and other reforms related to ease of doing business here this year, a World Bank report published globally Wednesday said. It dropped five places to rank at 99th in the Doing Business Report 2016 which looked at 189 economies. In the Doing Business Report 2015, Nepal was ranked 94th.

However, Nepal is still the second best place to do business in South Asia. Bhutan leads in the South Asian region coming in at 71st position, followed by Nepal (99), Sri Lanka (107), India (130), Pakistan (138) and Afghanistan (177), according to the Doing Business Report 2016. In South Asia, six of the region's eight economies implemented a total of nine reforms, the second largest share of any region after Europe and Central Asia, the report reads, adding that economies that implemented several reforms included India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. According to data collected by Doing Business, starting a business there requires seven procedures, takes 17 days, and costs 28.40 percent of income per capita. Likewise, Nepal stands at 105 in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of starting a business, globally, the report stated, adding that Nepal has made starting a business easier by reducing the administrative processing time at the company registrar and by establishing a data link between agencies involved in the incorporation process. "However, Nepal needs to improve some of the regulatory and administrative hassles to ease the doing business," the report said. The Doing Business reports present quantitative indicators on business regulations and protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies over time. Singapore topped the list in the 'Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency,' -- a World Bank Group flagship publication that is the 13th in a series of annual reports measuring regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it -- followed by New Zealand, Denmark, South Korea and Hong Kong. Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year's ranking on 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 2016 are current as of June 1, 2015. Various indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why. This year's Doing Business report continues a two-year process of introducing improvements in 8 of 10 Doing Business indicator sets -- to complement the emphasis on the efficiency of regulation with a greater focus on its quality. This year's report adds indicators for quality to four indicator sets: registering property, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity and enforcing contracts. In addition, the trading across borders indicators have been revised to increase their relevance, the reports said, adding that the underlying case studies now focus on the top export product for each economy, on a very common manufactured product (eg: auto parts) as its import product and on its largest trading partner for the export and import products.