Thailand’s ranking rises by 20 levels on ease of doing business

BANGKOK, Nov 1 (TNA) -- The World Bank ranks Thailand 26th on the ease of doing business, up from 46th last year and the country plans to be the second best in ASEAN. The World Bank presented the rankings in its Doing Business 2018 report covering 190 countries. Ranked 26th, Thailand takes the third position in ASEAN after Singapore, ranked 2nd, and Malaysia, 24th. Thailand scores 77.44 points up from 72.53 last year. It is among ten countries showing the best improvement for business conveniences in the past year. The World Bank described that Thailand shortened business registration time, canceled company stamps on share certificates, streamlined electricity supply processes, applied geographic information systems, facilitated solutions to bankruptcy, reduced asset transfer taxes and introduced electronic systems for complaints and court fee payment. Ulrich Zachau, the World Bank’s Director for Regional Partnerships, Malaysia, and Thailand, said Thailand achieved its major goal by being in a group of 15 countries that made business easier. He said Thailand did many things to facilitate business including lifting a requirement for companies to seek approval from the Labour Ministry for their work regulations. Consequently it took only 4.5 days instead of 27.5 days to start a business in the country, Mr Zachau said. The first ranking belonged to New Zealand, followed by Singapore and Denmark. Tosaporn Sirisampan, secretary-general of the Public Sector Development Commission, said Thailand intended to be the second best in ASEAN for the ease of doing business. (TNA)