OREANDA-NEWS. November 12, 2010. Estonia retained its 17th place, unchanged from last year, in the Doing Business report of the World Bank that assesses the ease of doing business in different countries.Estonia scored well in acquisition of assets and international trade, whereas matters related to liquidation of companies and protection of investments were seen as its weaker sides.

Of the countries situated near Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden were ranked higher. Lithuania and Latvia were in places 23 and 24, respectively, while Russia was ranked 123rd in the table ranking 183 countries.The top three countries of this year's scoreboard were Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

The Doing Business project seeks to provide objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 183 economies and selected cities at the sub-national and regional level.Launched in 2002, the project looks at domestic small and medium sized companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle.