OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2014. A new World Bank Group report finds that Singapore continues to provide the world’s most business-friendly regulatory environment. Also among the top 10 economies in the ease of doing business ranking are New Zealand; Hong Kong SAR, China; the Republic of Korea; and Australia.

Released today, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency finds that budding local entrepreneurs in East Asia and the Pacific continue to see improvements in the business environment, as the region’s economies implemented 24 regulatory reforms[1] in the past year alone. Indonesia improved prospects for small enterprises by implementing three regulatory reforms in 2013/14 in areas measured by the report. Across cities, the approval process for business incorporation was streamlined and labor taxes were reduced. In Jakarta, the process for getting an electricity connection was speeded up by eliminating the need to obtain multiple certificates.

The data show that many economies in the region made it easier for businesses to pay taxes in the past year. Vietnam reduced the corporate income tax rate. China enhanced its electronic filing and payment system—while also making business incorporation less expensive. Mongolia introduced a new electronic payment system. Such reforms are saving entrepreneurs valuable time. In Mongolia, for example, local businesses saw the average time for tax compliance fall from 192 hours a year in 2013 to 148 hours—less than in Austria.

“Since 2005, the East Asia and the Pacific region has narrowed the gap with global good practices,” said Rita Ramalho, Doing Business report lead author, World Bank Group. “Consistent regulatory reforms have improved the ease of doing business in the region in the past decade, and contributed to more business opportunities for local entrepreneurs.”

This year, for the first time, Doing Business collected data for a second city in economies with a population of more than 100 million. In China, the report now analyzes business regulations in Beijing as well as Shanghai—and in Indonesia, in Surabaya as well as Jakarta. Differences between cities are common in indicators measuring the steps, time, and cost to complete regulatory transactions where local agencies play a larger role, the report finds.

The report this year also expands the data for three of the 10 topics covered, and there are plans to do so for five more topics next year. In addition, the ease of doing business ranking is now based on the distance to frontier score. This measure shows how close each economy is to global best practices in business regulation. A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions.