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NZ most business-friendly economy - World Bank
[That's right ladies and gentlemen. In the fucking WORLD!!!!]
14 September 2005
By GREG TOURELLE

New Zealand has again topped a World Bank survey of business-friendly countries.

The bank rated 155 economies in January last year and confirmed New Zealand was the easiest place to do business.

While this was the also case the previous year, the bank said the two results were not comparable, because it based its ratings on 10 indicators this time, an increase of three on January 2004.

Singapore was second in the latest survey, United States third and Australia sixth. Zimbabwe was last.

The bank said all the top-ranking countries regulated businesses, but did so in less costly and burdensome ways.

The five Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Sweden – rated between five and 15.

The bank said they did not regulate "too little", but had simple regulations that allowed businesses to be productive and focus intervention where it counted, in protecting property rights and providing social services.

The ease with which people could do business in a country was related to employment, the World Bank said. New Zealand had 4.7 per cent unemployment when the survey was done, while Greece, with the worst OECD country rating of 80, had 10.9 per cent unemployment.

New Zealand performed consistently well across all 10 indicators for the survey. It was first for ease of registering property and protecting investors, second for dealing with licences and fourth for starting a business, hiring and firing, and enforcing contracts.

It was 15th for trading across borders, 16th for paying taxes and 21st for closing a business.

New Zealand introduced no major regulatory reforms during the year.

While many countries performed poorly because they lagged in encouraging business with regulatory reform, New Zealand had been one of the more "aggressive reformers" over the past 10-15 years, said Caralee McLiesh, senior economist on the World Bank's Doing Business project.

The bank had been speaking to the New Zealand Government over changes it had made or was making, but she said it was difficult to pinpoint any areas that were a major weakness.

"We know there are very various other plans under way for continuing to improve and streamline regulations, largely through the use of electronic services of government. . . and combining the different government services and agencies so an entrepreneur can face one point of contact for government rather than many."

The World Bank said it took a "leap of faith even in the best circumstances" to start a business, and that countries should make it easier, not more difficult, for entrepreneurs to establish companies and create jobs that help their national economies.

New Zealand Finance Minister Michael Cullen hailed the result.

"That New Zealand should compare so well internationally is a credit to the quality of our regulatory regime and to the government's economic management," he said in a statement.