44051 COMP ARING REGULA TION ACR OSS 32 EC ONOMIES AND WITH 178 EC ONOMIES COMPARING REGULATION ACROSS32ECONOMIESAND WITH 178ECONOMIES A copublication of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation © 2008 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone 202-473-1000 Internet www.worldbank.org E-mail feedback@worldbank.org All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 5 09 08 07 06 A copublication of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. This volume is a product of the staff of the World Bank Group. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank Group does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. Publication supported by the Government of Iceland under the Island Growth Initiative. 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Additional copies of Doing Business 2008, Doing Business 2007: How to Reform, Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs, Doing Business in 2005: Removing Obstacles to Growth and Doing Business in 2004: Understanding Regulation may be purchased at www.doingbusiness.org. Contents Doing Business in Small Island Developing States is a report Overview 1 drawing on the data of the global Doing Business project Doing business topics 9 and database, as well as the findings of Doing Business 2008, an annual report published by the World Bank and Ease of doing business 20 the International Finance Corporation. Doing Business ana- Reforming contract enforcement in Tonga 23 lyzes government regulations that enhance business activity What to expect 26 and those that constrain it in 178 countries, including 32 SIDS economies: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Cape Verde, Doing Business indicators 29 Comoros, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Grenada, Country tables 35 Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kiribati, Maldives, Acknowledgments 67 Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Singapore, St.Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sey- chelles, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu. Regulations affecting 10 areas of everyday business are measured: starting a business, dealing with licenses, employ- ing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. Comparisons with other countries in this report are based on the indicators in Doing Business 2008: Other areas important to business--such as a country's proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure services (other than services related to trading across borders), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions--are not studied directly by Doing Business. This report is the result of requests by the Government of Iceland. It was produced with support from the Island Growth Initiative of the Government of Iceland. OVERVIEW 11 Overview If you were opening a new business in Guinea-Bissau, the paying taxes and trading across borders. More can be done. startup procedures would take 233 days. In Mauritius, it takes Few small states make it easy to register property, get credit, only 7 days. If your company were to comply with all tax enforce contracts or close a business. requirements in Jamaica, it would take 72 separate payments and 414 administrative hours per year. The same firm would What get measured gets done. make only 1 payment in Maldives. And if you needed to take a customer to court in Timor-Leste, resolving the dispute New indicators on business regulations in Doing Business-- would take an average of 1,800 days. In Singapore the same and from other sources--allow countries to identify bottle- case could be resolved in just 120 days. necks and compare their performance with other countries. Many governments have taken action to create a better This inspires competition--no one likes looking worse than regulatory environment in both rich and emerging econo- their neighbors. In 2000, EU countries agreed to track the mies. Two hundred reforms affecting business regulations-- time and cost to start a business. Since then, every EU coun- including 18 in Small Island Developing States (SIDS)--were try has made startup easier. The effect is even stronger when introduced between April 2006 and June 2007. Reform can measurement is linked to financial incentives. When the ease the bureaucratic burden on all businesses--small and United States' Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) made large, domestic and foreign, rural and urban. By providing eligibility for funding dependent on the ease of business easy start-up requirements and strong property rights, any startup, many countries started reforms. business will have the opportunity to thrive. Publishing comparative data on the ease of doing busi- Doing Business 2008 ranks 178 economies on the ease of ness inspires governments to reform. Since its start in Octo- doing business based on 10 indicators of business regulation. ber 2003 the Doing Business project has inspired or informed Singapore tops the aggregate rankings for the second year. 113 reforms around the world. The indicators presented The rest of the top 30, in order, are New Zealand, the United in this report pinpoint the bottlenecks entrepreneurs face States, Hong Kong (China), Denmark, the United Kingdom, when complying with business regulations. They also provide Canada, Ireland, Australia, Iceland, Norway, Japan, Finland, examples of effective reforms that can eliminate these bottle- Sweden, Thailand, Switzerland, Estonia, Georgia, Belgium, necks, borrowing from the best practices worldwide. And Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, as the news about reform spreads, there is more interest in Austria, Lithuania, Mauritius, Puerto Rico, Israel and Korea. replicating success stories. Mauritius, ranked 27th globally and 2nd among the A low ranking in the ease of contract enforcement in the SIDS economies, became the highest ranked African country, 2006 World Bank Doing Business report prompted Tonga's surpassing South Africa on the overall ease of doing busi- government to seek remedial action. In September 2007, the ness (Table 1). Mauritius ranks higher than Korea, France Doing Business 2008 report highlighted that Tonga's Supreme (31st), Chile (33rd) and Portugal (37th) on the Doing Business Court had cut the average time to enforce contracts from 510 measurements. It ranks in the top 10 worldwide for the ease days to 350. While this does not make the court the world's of starting a business and places 11th on the ease of paying fastest, the vast improvement ensured the country the title of taxes. This success is due to the government's long-term ef- top reformer in the category of contract enforcement. Strik- forts to remove regulatory red tape. ing out close to 100 percent of dormant cases, placing others Twenty of the 32 small states included in the global on a strict timetable, introducing mediation, and increasing Doing Business sample rank in the top half on the ease of the jurisdiction of the Magistrate's Court was achieved in just doing business. Small states perform well on the ease of over one year. starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, 2 DOINg BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPINg STATES 2008 TABLE 1 Rankings on the ease of doing business, 2008, Small Island Developing States and global SIDS Global SIDS Global SIDS Global rank rank Economy rank rank Economy rank rank Economy 1 1 Singapore 10 61 Samoa 121 Honduras 2 New Zealand 11 62 Vanuatu 122 Brazil 3 United States 12 63 Jamaica 123 Indonesia 4 Hong Kong, China 13 64 St. Kitts and Nevis 124 Lesotho 5 Denmark 65 Panama 125 Algeria 6 United Kingdom 66 Colombia 126 Egypt 7 Canada 14 67 Trinidad and Tobago 127 Malawi 8 Ireland 68 United Arab Emirates 128 Ecuador 9 Australia 69 El Salvador 129 Morocco 10 Iceland 15 70 Grenada 130 Tanzania 11 Norway 71 Kazakhstan 131 Gambia 12 Japan 72 Kenya 26 132 Cape Verde 13 Finland 16 73 Kiribati 133 Philippines 14 Sweden 74 Poland 134 Mozambique 15 Thailand 75 Macedonia, FYR 135 Iran 16 Switzerland 76 Pakistan 136 Albania 17 Estonia 17 77 Dominica 137 Syria 18 Georgia 78 Brunei 138 Uzbekistan 19 Belgium 18 79 Solomon Islands 139 Ukraine 20 Germany 80 Jordan 140 Bolivia 21 Netherlands 81 Montenegro 141 Iraq 22 Latvia 19 82 Palau 27 142 Suriname 23 Saudi Arabia 83 China 143 Sudan 24 Malaysia 20 84 Papua New Guinea 144 Gabon 25 Austria 85 Lebanon 145 Cambodia 26 Lithuania 86 Serbia 146 Djibouti 2 27 Mauritius 87 Ghana 28 147 Comoros 28 Puerto Rico 88 Tunisia 29 148 Haiti 29 Israel 21 89 Marshall Islands 149 Madagascar 30 Korea 22 90 Seychelles 150 Rwanda 31 France 91 Vietnam 151 Benin 32 Slovakia 92 Moldova 152 Zimbabwe 33 Chile 93 Nicaragua 153 Tajikistan 3 34 St. Lucia 94 Kyrgyz Republic 154 Cameroon 35 South Africa 95 Swaziland 155 Côte d'Ivoire 4 36 Fiji 96 Azerbaijan 156 Togo 37 Portugal 97 Croatia 157 Mauritania 38 Spain 98 Uruguay 158 Mali 39 Armenia 23 99 Dominican Republic 159 Afghanistan 40 Kuwait 100 Greece 160 Sierra Leone 5 41 Antigua and Barbuda 101 Sri Lanka 161 Burkina Faso 42 Luxembourg 102 Ethiopia 162 Senegal 43 Namibia 103 Paraguay 30 163 São Tomé and Principe 44 Mexico 24 104 Guyana 164 Lao PDR 45 Hungary 105 Bosnia and Herzegovina 165 Equatorial Guinea 46 Bulgaria 106 Russia 166 Guinea 6 47 Tonga 107 Bangladesh 167 Angola 48 Romania 108 Nigeria 31 168 Timor-Leste 49 Oman 109 Argentina 169 Niger 50 Taiwan, China 110 Belarus 170 Liberia 51 Botswana 111 Nepal 171 Eritrea 52 Mongolia 25 112 Micronesia 172 Venezuela 53 Italy 113 Yemen 173 Chad 7 54 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 114 Guatemala 174 Burundi 55 Slovenia 115 Costa Rica 175 Congo, Rep. 56 Czech Republic 116 Zambia 32 176 Guinea-Bissau 57 Turkey 117 West Bank and Gaza 177 Central African Republic 58 Peru 118 Uganda 178 Congo, Dem. Rep. 8 59 Belize 119 Bhutan 9 60 Maldives 120 India Note: The rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2007 and reported in the Country tables. Rankings on the ease of doing business are the average of the country rankings on the 10 topics covered in Doing Business 2008. See Ease of doing business for details. Source: Doing Business database. OVERVIEW 3 FIGURE 1 The ease of doing business is associated with less informality Informal sector (share of GDP) Implied cut in the informal sector from improving to the top on ease of doing business Higher 40% Implied cut 30% Implied share after cut 20% 10% Lower Least di cult Most di cult Least di cult Most di cult Countries ranked by ease of doing business, quintiles Note: Relationships are signi cant at 1% level and remain signi cant when controlling for income per capita. Source: Doing Business database, Schneider (2005), WEF (2004). In 2006, Mauritius targeted making the top 10 list by 2009 A hypothetical improvement on all aspects of the Doing and has since used Doing Business indicators as benchmarks Business indicators to reach the level of the top quartile of of its progress. It has targeted several areas of reform. Over countries is associated with an estimated 1.4 to 2.2 per- the last two years Mauritius has reformed in 7 of the 10 areas centage points in annual economic growth. This is after Doing Business measures--one of the most dedicated reform controlling for other factors, such as income, government efforts (by governments) that the project has seen worldwide. expenditure, investment, education, inflation, conflict, and Reforms can improve competitiveness, reduce geographic regions. In contrast, improving to the level of the informality top quartile of countries on macroeconomic and education indicators is associated with 0.4 to 1.0 additional percentage Two hundred reforms affecting business regulations--includ- points in growth. ing 18 in Small Island Developing States--were introduced The gains come from 2 sources. First, businesses spend between April 2006 and June 2007. Reform can ease the bu- less time and money on dealing with regulations and chasing reaucratic burden on all businesses: small and large, domestic after scarce sources of finance. Instead, they spend their en- and foreign, rural and urban. Reforms allow firms to grow ergies on producing and marketing their goods. The associa- faster and create jobs in the formal sector. Improving a coun- tion between reforms and business profitability is best seen try's performance on the Doing Business indicators to the level in the increase in equity market returns (Figure 2). Second, of the top 30 countries is associated with a 9 percentage point the government spends fewer resources regulating and more fall in the informal sector's share of GDP (Figure 1). providing basic social services. Rankings on the ease of doing business do not tell the FIGURE 2 whole story. The indicator is limited in scope: it covers only Shareholders bene t from reform business regulations. It does not account for a country's prox- 3-year shareholder return (%) imity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure ser- vices (other than those related to trading across borders), the 80 Negative reforms Positive reforms security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or 60 the strength of institutions. Still, a high ranking on the ease of doing business does mean that the government has created a 40 regulatory environment conducive to operating a business. It also means fewer opportunities for corruption--as 20 each point of contact between the entrepreneur and a bu- reaucrat is an opportunity for a bribe exchange. Yet good 0 regulatory performance is not a function of wealth: poorer ­4 ­2 0 2 4 6 8 10 Number of reforms, 2003­06 economies can--and frequently do--perform better than richer economies on Doing Business indicators. Source: Doing Business database, Morgan Stanley Capital International data. 4 DOINg BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPINg STATES 2008 FIGURE 3 Greater ease of doing business, more women entrepreneurs and workers Female entrepreneurship (% of entrepreneurs who are women) Female unemployment (% of male unemployment) More Greater women unemployment Least di cult Most di cult Least di cult Most di cult Countries ranked by ease of doing business, quintiles Countries ranked by ease of doing business, quintiles Note: Relationships are signi cant at the 1% level and remain signi cant when controlling for income per capita. Source: Doing Business database; World Bank Enterprise Surveys; World Bank, World Development Indicators database. Opportunities for women from third place to fifth, overtaken by South Asia and by the Women and young workers benefit the most from reforms. Middle East and North Africa. Three SIDS economies in Af- Both groups account for a large share of the unemployed rica introduced 8 positive reforms affecting at least one Doing (Figure 3). Women are 3 times as likely as men to be hired Business indicator. informally in most developing countries. In these jobs they Mauritius, already one of the world's most business- receive no social benefits. And if they are abused by their friendly countries, made it even easier to do business in 7 employer, they have limited legal recourse. areas. A three-year program is harmonizing the tax system Reform can change this, by making it easier for formal and ultimately will create a single corporate tax rate with few businesses to create more jobs. Reform also expands the tax credits or tax holidays. Other reforms reduced the prop- reach of regulation by bringing businesses and workers into erty registration fee to 5 percent of the property value and the formal sector. There, workers can have health insurance simplified construction permitting. A central database now and pension benefits. Businesses pay some taxes, products links the company registry with tax, social security, and local are subject to quality standards, and businesses can more authorities--shortening business start-up to just one week. A easily obtain bank credit or use courts to resolve disputes. new risk management system accelerated customs clearance Countries with higher scores on the ease of doing business for low-risk importers. And a new law will help creditors have larger shares of women in the ranks of both entrepre- recover their debt faster in bankruptcy cases. neurs and workers. Some other SIDS economies in Africa have followed the Consider Uganda. Complex start-up regulations created suit: Seychelles reduced the tax burden on companies by sim- more contact between entrepreneurs and public officials-- plifying the tax structure and decreasing rates. Guinea Bissau and more chances for bribery. Women were seen as easy tar- reduced the cost of registering property by reducing the regis- gets: 43% of female entrepreneurs reported harassment from tration or transfer tax. These measures were in part motivated government officials, while only 25% of all entrepreneurs did. by the desire of this country to reach the Millennium Chal- When reformers simplified business start-up, business regis- lenge Corporation eligibility threshold. Cape Verde, Comoros trations shot up. The increase in first-time business owners and Saõ Tomé and Principe did not reform. was 33% higher for women than men. East Asia and the Pacific ranks second-to-last among regions on the pace of business reform, according to Doing Who is reforming? Business 2008. Ten countries in the region, including three SIDS economies implemented positive reforms. Fiji's reform Last year, 11 SIDS economies introduced 20 reforms--18 of results in judges focusing exclusively on deciding legal dis- which made it easier to do business, and 2 negative reforms. putes. A magistrate called a "Master" was appointed to deal Doing business has become easier in some parts of Af- with all other matters, such as assessing damages after liabil- rica--24 African countries implemented 49 reforms. In the ity has been established. In June 2006, the High Court Rules regional rankings on the pace of reform, however, Africa fell were amended to reflect the new role and responsibilities of OVERVIEW 5 the Master. of import documents. A new property law and the reform Micronesia implemented its first secured transactions of the registry cut property registration from 107 to 60 days. law and also launched a unified online registry for all security One change made doing business in the Dominican Republic rights in movable property. The registry covers all types of more costly--total tax rate payable by businesses was in- creditors and debtors. Timor-Leste eliminated approvals by creased by 3.7%. the Ministry of Land, expediting starting a business by 10 Haiti decreased the time to register property from over days. two years to 405 days by decreasing time to register at the tax Tonga cut the time to enforce contracts from 510 days authorities. Time to register the sale contract has been halved to 350, transferring 90% of all cases--criminal, commercial and is now 6 months to one year. Trinidad and Tobago now and land--from paper to computer. Cases are now monitored includes utility companies as providers of information to daily through a computerized spreadsheet system. Tonga also credit bureaus increasing the credit information index. In ad- adopted new procedural rules for the Supreme Court and dition, the corporate income tax rate decreased from 30% to the Magistrates Court and it increased the threshold for the 25%. Belize, Dominica, Grenada and Guyana did not reform. Magistrates Courts. South Asia picked up the pace of regulatory reform over Not all reforms were positive. Vanuatu made it more the past year to become the second-fastest reforming region costly to register property. The cost to apply for registration in the world, on par with the speed of reform in the countries of the Deed of Transfer at the Department of Lands Records of the OECD. In 2006-2007 two-thirds of countries in South increased from 2% to 6% of property value. Palau, Papua Asia had at least one reform. Maldives, although the top- New Guinea, Samoa, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands and ranking country in the region, did not reform. Solomon Islands did not reform any regulations covered by the Doing Business indicators. What to reform in SIDS economies The slowdown in reform across Latin America and the Caribbean could be a result of a busy election year: 13 As a group of countries, SIDS economies perform well in countries saw new governments sworn in. Earlier analysis by three Doing Business areas: dealing with licenses, employing Doing Business suggests that the pace of reform may pick up workers and paying taxes; and relatively well on the ease of next year, as nearly 85 percent of reforms take place during starting a business, protecting investors and trading across the first 15 months a new government is in office. In 2006/07 borders. Priorities for most reform in Small Island Develop- it was the world's slowest reforming region, according to ing States are: closing a business, getting credit, registering Doing Business 2008. Overall, the region saw 26 positive re- property and enforcing contracts (Table 2). forms, including 6 in SIDS economies--but also six changes SIDS countries can learn from each other. If they were that made countries less friendly to business, including 1 in to adopt the practices of each top performer in the region on a SIDS economy. the ten areas measured by Doing Business, they would rank Dominican Republic has been successful in streamlin- second globally on the overall ease of doing business. This ing procedures; by simplifying the name registration process means adopting Mauritius's company start-up regulations and introducing online tax registration, the time to start a and investor protections, St. Vincent and the Grenadines' business has been reduced from 72 to 22 days. The govern- licensing requirements, Marshall Islands' flexible labor regu- ment abolished the requirement for consular notarization lations, Palau's efficient property transfer, Singapore's credit TABLE 2 Reform priorities for SIDS economies by region Area of reform (highest priority =7) Number of Starting Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading across Enforcing Closing a economies Region a business licenses workers property credit investors taxes borders contracts business 12 East Asia & Pacific 3 3 1 4 4 3 2 2 3 5 14 Latin America & Caribbean 5 2 3 5 3 4 5 3 6 4 1 South Asia 2 4 6 6 6 2 4 6 7 6 5 Sub-Saharan Africa 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 7 5 7 Source: Doing Business database. 6 DOINg BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPINg STATES 2008 FIGURE 4 Taking the best practice, SIDS would rank #2 globally and promote rampant evasion. Charging fees on a percentage Global ranking on the ease of doing business basis encourages fraudulent declarations of property value. (178 economies) A hypothetical country, SIDS, taking the best Government revenues are lower as a result. It would be opti- 1 practices in the region, would rank number 2 globally. mal if the transfer taxes and fees are fixed and not calculated U.S. Those best practices are: on a percentage basis. 20 Germany GLOBAL France COUNTRY RANK Countries that transfer records from paper to electronic 40 Starting a business Mauritius 8 form always benefit from shorter processing times. Going Dealing with licenses St.Vincent and the Grenadines 1 60 Employing workers Marshall Islands 1 electronic also makes it easier to identify errors and overlap- Registering property Palau 14 ping titles, improving title security. Countries can study ex- 80 China Getting Credit Singapore 7 amples of efficient property registration systems in Singapore Protecting investors Mauritius 11 100 Paying taxes Maldives 1 or Palau or follow the reform example of Dominica. One way 120 Trading across borders Singapore 1 to start is to create an electronic database of records to make India Enforcing contracts Singapore 4 searches easier, while keeping the records in paper-format, Closing a business Jamaica 22 as was done in Dominica. Once electronic records exist, one Source: Doing Business database. next step is to allow searching and filing. regulations, trade practices and court procedures, Maldives' tax regulations and Jamaica's bankruptcy practices. The Getting credit--what to reform best practices of SIDS countries combine to make a globally Efficient credit information systems allow lenders to ad- competitive economy--truly a top place for doing business equately assess the potential borrowers' creditworthiness. As (Figure 4). a result, lenders are more likely to extend loans at more favor- Registering property--what to reform able rates, and access to credit is improved. SIDS economies fall behind on the ease of getting credit. Comoros, Guyana, Land and construction account for between half and three- Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Seychelles, Timor-Leste, quarters of the wealth in any economy. Securing rights to this Tonga, are among the 20 countries in the world where getting property strengthens incentives to invest and facilitates trade. credit is most difficult. Twenty six SIDS economies score 0 on Improving the property registration system is a priority reform Doing Business credit information index. Currently, no credit for SIDS economies. It takes on average 116 days to transfer a information system exists in any other Pacific island, except property title in SIDS economies. Due to legal uncertainties for Fiji. Many countries are establishing or consider estab- Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Timor-Leste re- lishing credit registries and bureaus this year. ceived a "no practice" score for the Doing Business registering Given the size of the SIDS economies and initial cost of property indicator. developing a credit bureau, it may be more cost effective to Capacity building is an important component of any join an existing credit bureau. Several countries are members reform. In Haiti a reform program began to reduce the time of international credit bureaus where information is shared to register the sale-contract through reorganization, training across countries. Examples include TUCA in Guatemala, and employment of interns. Beginning in the summer of Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica or the 2006, a program was begun to reorganize the department and linked credit bureaus in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and retrain employees. In addition, about 60 interns were hired South Africa. from the local university and trained, with the promise that if A regional credit bureau is currently being developed they performed well, they would be contracted as employees. in the Caribbean (the Eastern Caribbean Credit Bureau After the initial two month training period, a six-month pro- Project--ECRCB). The development of the credit bureau is gram commenced to reduce the time to register sale contracts. performed independently by Trans Union and local com- The transformation was closely supervised and at the end of mercial banks. The bureau will include OECS countries, the period­in which improvements were definitely achieved, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The thanks to the additional staff and training­the interns that bureau's information technology infrastructure will be based had performed well were hired. More needs to be done--it in Trinidad and Tobago and will serve other countries in the still takes 405 days to transfer a property title in Haiti. region from there. The cost of property transfer is high in many SIDS Countries that only recently set up a credit registry or economies. It takes 20% of the property value to transfer a bureau could consider expanding the scope of information property title in Comoros, and more than 10% in 15 other collected and provided. The credit bureau should cover posi- SIDS economies. High costs discourage formal transactions tive and negative information on both firms and individuals, OVERVIEW 7 distribute credit information from retailers, trade creditors, the claim is not disputed, the need for a court process would utility companies and financial institutions, include histori- be eliminated, which in turn would bring down enforcement cal information for more than 2 years, distribute data on all time. If the case is contested before the bailiff, the case would loans (or at least loans below 1% income per capita), and be referred back to court. introduce provisions to guarantee that borrowers can inspect their data. Closing a business--what to reform Enforcing contracts--what to reform The bankruptcy process is inefficient in most SIDS econo- mies. Claims are eroded by long delays, high costs and by Resolving commercial disputes through the courts is time laws that either kill viable businesses or keep unviable ones consuming in most SIDS economies--it takes 677 days on alive. This means that creditors, workers, tax agencies and average compared with 550 days in East Asia and 443 days other claimants recover, on average, less than 30 cents on the in OECD countries. In all but three SIDS economies it takes dollar after a bankruptcy case winds up. This needs to change. more than a year to enforce a simple commercial claim. Forty Easier exit means easier entry. Doing Business 2008 found two percent of the claim's value is lost in the process, more that reforms to encourage a fresh start have raised rates of than double the costs in rich countries. new business creation by 8-9%. Belize, Suriname and Timor-Leste are among the 10 A country that wants efficient bankruptcy should regu- countries globally where enforcing a contract is most difficult. late only what it can enforce. Sophisticated reorganization In Papua New Guinea a creditor might pay as much as $1,700 procedures work only in rich countries, with experienced to recover a debt of $1540 (twice the average income). Yet, judges and lawyers and a liquid market for the assets of re- reforms are slow in coming. In 2006/7 only 2 SIDS introduced organizing firms. In middle-income countries a simpler pro- reforms in contract enforcement area. Complex enforcement cedure--liquidation--brings the most benefits to all parties, procedures lead business to avoid courts in favor of simpler, including employees and suppliers. In low income countries often informal, alternatives. In developing countries, more the highest return comes in debt enforcement procedures-- procedures are associated with less--not more--fairness and not in reorganization (Figure 5). The likelihood of saving a impartiality in the legal system. viable firm is higher in a simple foreclosure or liquidation To reduce the time it takes to enforce a contract the gov- than in a reorganization proceeding. Bankruptcy procedures ernment can first and foremost start collecting judicial statis- should be expeditious and allow creditors the choice between tics, as this will allow for a clearer diagnosis of the problems. reorganization and liquidation, whichever of the two they Analyzing court workload can help predict trends and plan value most. A suitable, formal out-of-court restructuring strategically. Then --introduce case management, including process could greatly assist banks to restructure borrowers court automated information systems, allowing e-filing of having financial trouble. cases and online access to court documents, as was done in Governments can speed the foreclosure process by St. Lucia, Tonga and Fiji. Case management makes it possible introducing summary judgment proceedings and private en- to measure the performance of judges. forcement. Regardless of whether a firm enters liquidation or Secondly, recovery can be sped by allowing competition FIGURE 5 in enforcing judgments. By scrapping the public monopoly Foreclosure works best in poor countries on executing judges' rulings, countries like Poland, Colom- bia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Slovakia have cut several Recovery rate (cents on the dollar) months from the time of enforcement. Licensed private en- 75.7 Foreclosure Reorganization forcement agents quickly moved into the business. This saves time for claimants, and also saves money from the judicial 59.7 budget for the government. Thirdly, establish small claims courts with simplified 39.0 procedural rules. Let the judges focus on deciding legal 33.4 27.0 disputes. If the creditor can present the judge with evidence 20.1 of the transaction and nonpayment, summary proceedings would permit immediate recovery of the debt. Such reform can significantly cut the time it takes to decide a commer- Poor Middle-income Rich countries countries countries cial case. One step further is to take the cases out of court altogether and give them to bailiffs for direct enforcement. If Source: Doing Business database. 8 DOINg BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPINg STATES 2008 reorganization, the insolvency administrator should be able to sell the business as a going concern at fair price so that the new owners keep the intrinsic value of the operating business and not just the assets. Consider how Mauritius made debt enforcement easier by passing the Borrower Protection Act in 2007. Before, asset sales took place through a long "sale by levy" process that failed to realize the assets' market value. The new law allows land and building to be sold at private auction. Eight types of reform were most effective: · Minimizedependenceoncourts. · Establishspecializedcourts. · Shiftpowertocreditors. · Limitappeals. · Introducetimelimits. · Usetheinternettopostdecisionsandpublicize auctions. · Introducefloatingcharges. · Developthetrusteeprofession. 9 Starting a business table 1 Where is it easy to start a business--and where not? Entry regulation Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Mauritius 8 Comoros 145 Singapore 9 Cape Verde 156 Jamaica 11 Suriname 163 Marshall Islands 15 Haiti 170 Dominica 23 Guinea-Bissau 178 Source: Doing Business database. When entrepreneurs draw up a business plan and try to get Cumbersome entry procedures are associated with more under way, the first hurdles they face are the procedures re- corruption, particularly in developing countries. Each proce- quired to incorporate and register the new firm before they dure is a point of contact--an opportunity to extract a bribe. can legally operate. Economies differ greatly in how they Analysis shows that burdensome entry regulations do not regulate the entry of new businesses. In some it is straightfor- increase the quality of products, make work safer or reduce ward and affordable. In others the procedures are so burden- pollution. Instead, they constrain private investment; push some that entrepreneurs may have to bribe officials to speed more people into the informal economy; increase consumer the process--or may decide to run their business informally. prices; and fuel corruption. The data on starting a business are based on a survey and research investigating the procedures that a standard small to table 2 Who regulates start-up the least--and who the most? medium-size company needs to complete to start operations Procedures (number) legally. These include obtaining all necessary permits and li- Fewest Most censes and completing all required inscriptions, verifications and notifications with authorities to enable the company to Tonga 4 Comoros 11 Dominica 5 Cape Verde 12 formally operate. The time and cost required to complete each Maldives 5 Haiti 12 procedure under normal circumstances are calculated, as well Marshall Islands 5 Suriname 13 as the minimum capital that must be paid in. It is assumed Singapore 5 Guinea-Bissau 17 that all information is readily available to the entrepreneur, Time (days) that there has been no prior contact with officials and that Least Most all government and nongovernment entities involved in the Singapore 5 Timor-Leste 82 process function without corruption. Mauritius 7 São Tomé and Principe 144 To make the data comparable across economies, detailed Jamaica 8 Haiti 202 assumptions about the type of business are used. Among Maldives 9 Guinea-Bissau 233 these assumptions are the following: the business is a limited St.Vincent and the Grenadines 12 Suriname 694 liability company conducting general commercial activities Cost (% of income per capita) in the largest business city; it is 100% domestically owned, Least Most with start-up capital of 10 times income per capita, turnover Singapore 0.8 Haiti 133.9 of at least 100 times income per capita and between 10 and Trinidad and Tobago 0.9 Micronesia 137.0 50 employees; and it does not qualify for any special benefits, Palau 4.7 Suriname 141.8 nor does it own real estate. Procedures are recorded only Mauritius 5.3 Comoros 188.4 where interaction is required with an external party. It is as- Jamaica 8.7 Guinea-Bissau 255.5 sumed that the founders complete all procedures themselves Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita) unless professional services (such as by a notary or lawyer) Least Most are required by law. Voluntary procedures are not counted, Belize 0.0 Haiti 32.2 nor are industry-specific requirements and utility hook-ups. Dominica 0.0 Cape Verde 53.4 Lawful shortcuts are counted. Dominican Republic 0.0 Comoros 280.3 Fiji 0.0 Timor-Leste 595.2 Micronesia 0.0 Guinea-Bissau 1006.6 Source: Doing Business database. 10 Dealing with licenses table 3 Where is it easy to deal with licenses--and where not? Building a warehouse Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank St.Vincent and the Grenadines 1 Timor-Leste 100 Belize 3 Guinea-Bissau 101 Marshall Islands 4 SãoTomé and Principe 113 Singapore 5 Papua New Guinea 118 St. Kitts and Nevis 7 Haiti 126 Source: Doing Business database. Once entrepreneurs have registered a business, what regula- · Isanewconstruction(therewasnoprevious tions do they face in operating it? To measure such regulation, construction on the land). Doing Business focuses on the construction sector. Construc- · Hascompletearchitecturalandtechnicalplans prepared by a licensed architect. tion companies are under constant pressure--from govern- ment to comply with inspections and with licensing and · Willbeconnectedtoelectricity,water,sewerage (sewage system, septic tank or their equivalent) and one safety regulations and from customers to be quick and cost- land phone line. The connection to each utility network effective. These conflicting pressures, point to the tradeoff in will be 32 feet, 10 inches (10 meters) long. building regulation--the tradeoff between protecting people · Willbeusedforgeneralstorage,suchasofbooksor (construction workers, tenants, passersby) and keeping the stationery. The warehouse will not be used for any cost of building affordable. goods requiring special conditions, such as food, In many countries, especially poor ones, complying with chemicals or pharmaceuticals. building regulations is so costly in time and money that many · Willtake30weekstoconstruct(excludingalldelays builders opt out. Builders may pay bribes to pass inspections due to administrative and regulatory requirements). or simply build illegally--leading to hazardous construction. Where the regulatory burden is large, entrepreneurs move In other countries compliance is simple, straightforward and their activity into the informal economy. There they operate inexpensive--yielding better results. with less concern for safety, leaving everyone worse off. The indicators on dealing with licenses record all proce- dures officially required for an entrepreneur in the construc- table 4 tion industry to build a warehouse. These include submitting Who regulates licensing the least--and who the most? project documents (building plans, site maps) to the authori- Procedures (number) ties, obtaining all necessary licenses and permits, completing Fewest Most all required notifications and receiving all necessary inspec- Vanuatu 7 Seychelles 19 tions. They also include procedures for obtaining utility con- Grenada 9 Trinidad and Tobago 20 Maldives 9 Timor-Leste 22 nections, such as electricity, telephone, water and sewerage. St. Lucia 9 Papua New Guinea 24 The time and cost to complete each procedure under normal Jamaica 10 Palau 25 circumstances are calculated. All official fees associated with legally completing the procedures are included. Time is re- Time (days) corded in calendar days. The survey assumes that the entre- Least Most preneur is aware of all existing regulations and does not use Vanuatu 51 Jamaica 236 Marshall Islands 55 São Tomé and Principe 255 an intermediary to complete the procedures unless required Solomon Islands 62 Trinidad and Tobago 261 to do so by law. Belize 66 Suriname 431 To make the data comparable across economies, several St. Kitts and Nevis 72 Haiti 1179 assumptions about the business and its operations are used. Cost (% of income per capita) The business is a small to medium-size limited liability com- Least Most pany, located in the most populous city, domestically owned and operated, in the construction business, with 20 qualified Trinidad and Tobago 5.9 Kiribati 629.3 Palau 6.1 Cape Verde 718.3 employees. The warehouse to be built: St. Vincent and the Grenadines 9.2 Haiti 817.8 St. Kitts and Nevis 14.0 São Tomé and Principe 825.9 Belize 18.5 Guinea-Bissau 2607.0 Source: Doing Business database. 11 Employing workers table 5 Where is it easy to employ workers--and where not? Labor regulation Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Marshall Islands 1 Dominican Republic 106 Singapore 1 Cape Verde 143 Tonga 4 Comoros 158 Maldives 7 Guinea-Bissau 174 Palau 9 São Tomé and Principe 176 Source: Doing Business database. Every economy has a system of laws and institutions to pro- ates in the country's most populous city, is 100% domestically tect workers and guarantee a minimum standard of living for owned and has 201 employees. The company is also assumed its population. This system encompasses four bodies of law: to be subject to collective bargaining agreements in countries employment, industrial relations, social security and occu- where such agreements cover more than half the manufactur- pational health and safety. Doing Business examines govern- ing sector and apply even to firms not party to them. ment regulation of employment and social security laws. Most employment regulations are enacted in response to Three measures are presented: a rigidity of employment market failures. But that does not mean that today's regula- index, a nonwage labor cost measure and a firing cost mea- tions are optimal. Analysis across countries shows that while sure. The rigidity of employment index is the average of three employment regulation generally increases the tenure and subindices: difficulty of hiring, rigidity of hours and difficulty wages of incumbent workers, rigid regulations have many un- of firing. Each index takes values between 0 and 100, with desirable side effects. These include less job creation, smaller higher values indicating more rigid regulation. The difficulty company size, less investment in research and development, of hiring index measures the flexibility of contracts and the and longer spells of unemployment and thus the obsolescence ratio of the minimum wage to the value added per worker. of skills--all of which may reduce productivity growth. Many The rigidity of hours index covers restrictions on weekend countries err on the side of excessive rigidity, to the detriment and night work, requirements relating to working time and of businesses and workers alike. the workweek, and mandated days of paid annual leave. The difficulty of firing index covers workers' legal protections table 6 against dismissal, including the grounds permitted and the Who regulates employment the least--and who the most? procedures for dismissal (individual and collective). Rigidity of employment index (0­100) The nonwage labor cost covers all social security pay- Least rigid Most rigid ments and payroll taxes associated with hiring an employee, Maldives 0 Seychelles 34 expressed as a percentage of the worker's salary. The firing Marshall Islands 0 Cape Verde 44 Singapore 0 Comoros 46 cost indicator measures the cost of advance notice require- Jamaica 4 São Tomé and Principe 63 ments, severance payments and penalties due when termi- Palau 4 Guinea-Bissau 66 nating a redundant worker, expressed in weeks of salary. The indicators on employment regulations are based on Firing cost (weeks of salary) a detailed study of employment laws. Data are also gathered Least Most on the specific constitutional provisions governing the two Marshall Islands 0 Guinea-Bissau 87 Micronesia 0 Dominican Republic 88 areas studied. To ensure accuracy, both the actual laws and Palau 0 São Tomé and Principe 91 the applicable collective bargaining agreements are used. Tonga 0 Cape Verde 91 Finally, all data are verified and completed by local law firms Fiji 2 Comoros 100 through a detailed survey of employment regulations. To make the data comparable across economies, a range Nonwage labor cost (% of salary) of assumptions about the worker and the company are used. Least Most Assumptions about the worker include that he is a non-exec- Comoros 0 Singapore 13 Maldives 0 Dominican Republic 14 utive, full-time male employee who has worked in the same Suriname 0 Cape Verde 17 company for 20 years and is not a member of the labor union Timor-Leste 0 Guinea-Bissau 22 (unless membership is mandatory). The company is assumed Tonga 0 Seychelles 25 to be a limited liability manufacturing corporation that oper- Source: Doing Business database. 12 Registering property table 7 Where is it easy to register property--and where not? Regulation of property transfers Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Singapore 13 Guinea-Bissau 164 Palau 14 Maldives 178 Seychelles 50 Micronesia 178 St. Lucia 51 Timor-Leste 178 Guyana 53 Marshall Islands 178 Source: Doing Business database. Property registries were first developed to help raise tax rev- costs 12% of the value of the property and takes more than enue. Defining and publicizing property rights through regis- 100 days on average. Worse, the property registries are so tries has also proved to be good for entrepreneurs. Land and poorly organized that they provide little security of owner- buildings account for between half and three-quarters of the ship. For both reasons, formalized titles quickly revert to wealth in most economies. Securing rights to this property informal again. strengthens incentives to invest and facilitates commerce. Efficient property registration reduces transaction costs And with formal property titles, entrepreneurs can obtain and helps keep formal titles from slipping into informal mortgages on their home or land and start businesses. status. Simple procedures to register property are also associ- Doing Business measures the ease of registering property ated with greater perceived security of property rights and based on a standard case of an entrepreneur who wants to less corruption. That benefits all entrepreneurs, especially purchase land and a building in the largest business city. It women, the young and the poor. The rich have few problems is assumed that the property is already registered and free of protecting their property rights. They can afford to invest in title dispute. The data cover the full sequence of procedures security systems and other measures to defend their property. necessary to transfer the property title from the seller to the But small entrepreneurs cannot. Reform can change this. buyer. Every required procedure is included, whether it is the responsibility of the seller or the buyer or must be completed table 8 by a third party on their behalf. Who regulates property registration the least-- and who the most? Local property lawyers and officials in property regis- Procedures (number) tries provide information on required procedures as well as Fewest Most the time and cost to complete each one. For most countries Vanuatu 2 Solomon Islands 10 the data are based on responses from both. Based on the re- Fiji 3 Maldives no practice sponses, three indicators are constructed: Singapore 3 Marshall Islands no practice · Numberofprocedurestoregisterproperty. Suriname 4 Micronesia no practice · Timetoregisterproperty(incalendardays). Tonga 4 Timor-Leste no practice · Officialcoststoregisterproperty(asapercentageofthe Time (days) property value). Least Most Singapore 9 Kiribati 513 A large share of the property in developing countries is not Palau 14 Maldives no practice formally registered, limiting financing opportunities for busi- St. Lucia 20 Marshall Islands no practice nesses. Recognizing this constraint, some developing country Comoros 24 Micronesia no practice governments have embarked on extensive property titling Antigua and Barbuda 26 Timor-Leste no practice programs. Yet bringing assets into the formal sector is of little Cost (% of income per capita) value unless they stay there. Least Most Many titling programs in Africa were futile because Kiribati 0.1 Comoros 20.8 people bought and sold property informally--neglecting to Palau 0.4 Maldives no practice update the title records in the property registry. Why? Doing Samoa 1.8 Marshall Islands no practice Business shows that completing a simple formal property Singapore 2.8 Micronesia no practice transfer in the largest business city of an African country Guyana 4.5 Timor-Leste no practice Source: Doing Business database. 13 Getting credit table 9 Where is getting credit easy--and where not? Credit information and legal rights Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Singapore 7 Comoros 158 Dominican Republic 36 Tonga 158 Fiji 48 Marshall Islands 170 Trinidad and Tobago 48 Palau 170 Cape Verde 68 Timor-Leste 170 Source: Doing Business database. Firms consistently rate access to credit as among the greatest barriers to their operation and growth. Doing Busi- · Securedcreditorshaveprioritybothwithinbankruptcy ness constructs two sets of indicators of how well credit mar- and outside it. kets function--one on credit registries and the other on legal · Partiesmayagreeonout-of-courtenforcementof rights of borrowers and lenders. collateral by contract. Credit registries--institutions that collect and distribute · Creditorsmaybothseizeandsellcollateraloutof credit information on borrowers--can greatly expand access court, no automatic stay or "asset freeze" applies upon bankruptcy, and the bankrupt debtor does not retain to credit. By sharing credit information, they help lenders control of the firm. assess risk and allocate credit more efficiently. And they free entrepreneurs from having to rely on personal connections The index ranges from 0 (weak legal rights) to 10 (strong legal alone when trying to obtain credit. Three indicators are con- rights). The data were obtained by examining collateral and structed to measure the sharing of credit information: bankruptcy laws and legal summaries and verified through a Public registry coverage, which reports the number of survey of financial lawyers. individuals and firms covered by a public credit registry as a Where good-quality credit information is available and percentage of the adult population. legal rights are stronger, more credit is extended. Benefits Private bureau coverage, which reports the number of flow beyond those gaining access to credit. With better-func- individuals and firms covered by a private credit bureau as a tioning credit markets, unemployment is lower, and women percentage of the adult population. and low-income people benefit the most. Depth of credit information index, which measures the extent to which the rules of a credit information system table 10 facilitate lending based on the scope of information distrib- Who has the most credit information--and who the least? uted, the ease of access to information and the quality of Borrower covered as share of adults (%) information. Most Least The data are from surveys of public registries and the Dominican Republic 48.7 Marshall Islands 0.0 largest private credit bureau in the country. Singapore 42.7 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 0.0 Fiji 41.2 Suriname 0.0 Effective regulation of secured lending--through col- Mauritius 38.6 Timor-Leste 0.0 lateral and bankruptcy laws--can also ease credit constraints. Trinidad and Tobago 34.4 Tonga 0.0 By giving a lender the right to seize and sell a borrower's Source: Doing Business database. secured assets upon default, collateral limits the lender's potential losses and acts as a screening device for borrowers. The strength of legal rights index measures 10 aspects of the table 11 rights of borrowers and creditors in collateral and bankruptcy Who has the most legal rights for borrowers and lenders-- and who the least? laws, including whether: Strengh of the legal rights index (0­10) · Generalratherthanspecificdescriptionofassetsand debt is permitted in collateral agreements (expanding Most Least the scope of assets and debt covered). Singapore 9 Guinea-Bissau 3 · Anylegalornaturalpersonmaygrantortakesecurity Belize 7 Seychelles 3 Micronesia 7 Marshall Islands 2 in assets. St. Vincent and the Grenadines 7 Palau 2 · Aunifiedregistryoperatesthatincludeschargesover Dominica 6 Timor-Leste 2 movable property. Source: Doing Business database. 14 Protecting investors table 12 Where are investors protected--and where not? Corporate governance Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Singapore 2 Marshall Islands 147 Mauritius 11 Haiti 158 Trinidad and Tobago 15 Micronesia 165 Dominica 19 Palau 165 Grenada 19 Suriname 174 Source: Doing Business database. OfficialsatElfAquitaine,France'slargestoilcompany,awarded investor to examine the defendant and other witnesses, share- business deals in return for large side payments. Along with holders' access to internal documents of the company, the ap- the extra cash, they got 7 years in jail and a 2 million fine for pointment of an inspector to investigate the transaction and abuseofpower.RussianoilfirmGazpromboughtmaterials the standard of proof in a to a civil suit against the directors. for new pipelines through intermediaries owned by company These three indices are averaged to create the strength officers. The high cost raised eyebrows, but not court battles. of investor protection index. This index ranges from 0 to 10, Big cases make headlines. But looting by corporate insid- with higher values indicating better investor protection. ers occurs every day on a smaller scale, and often goes un- If the rights of investors are not protected, majority noticed. To document the protections investors have, Doing ownership in a business is the only way to eliminate expro- Business measures how countries regulate a standard case of priation. But then investors must devote more oversight self-dealing--use of corporate assets for personal gain. attention to fewer investments. The result: entrepreneurship The case facts are simple. Mr. James, a director and the is suppressed, and fewer profitable investment projects are majority shareholder of a public company, proposes that the undertaken. Where self-dealing is curbed, equity investment company buy used trucks from another company he owns. is higher, ownership concentration lower and trust in the The price is higher than the going price for used trucks. The business sector deeper. Investors gain portfolio diversifica- transaction goes forward. All required approvals are obtained, tion, and entrepreneurs gain access to cash. and all required disclosures made, though the transaction is unfair to the purchasing company. Shareholders sue the inter- table 13 Where are investor protections strong--and where not? ested parties and the members of the board of directors. Several questions arise. Who approves the transaction? Extent of disclosure index (0­10) What information must be disclosed? What company docu- Most Least ments can investors access? What do minority shareholders Singapore 10 Suriname 2 Comoros 6 Cape Verde 1 have to prove to get the transaction stopped or to receive Guinea-Bissau 6 Maldives 0 compensation from Mr. James? Three indices of investor Kiribati 6 Micronesia 0 protection are constructed based on the answers to these and Mauritius 6 Palau 0 other questions. All indices range from 0 to 10, with higher values indicating more protections or greater disclosure. Extent of director liability index (0­10) The extent of disclosure index covers approval proce- Most Least dures, requirements for immediate disclosure to the public Singapore 9 Dominican Republic 0 Trinidad and Tobago 9 Marshall Islands 0 and shareholders of proposed transactions, requirements for Dominica 8 Micronesia 0 disclosure in periodic filings and reports and the availability Fiji 8 Palau 0 of external review of transactions before they take place. Mauritius 8 Suriname 0 The extent of director liability index covers the ability of Ease of shareholder suits index (0­10) investors to hold Mr. James and the board of directors liable Easiest Most difficult for damages, the ability to rescind the transaction, the avail- ability of fines and jail time for self-dealing, the availability of Mauritius 9 Comoros 5 Singapore 9 Guinea-Bissau 5 direct or derivative suits and the ability to require Mr. James Maldives 8 Seychelles 5 to pay back his personal profits from the transaction. Micronesia 8 Haiti 4 The ease of shareholder suits index covers the availability Palau 8 Jamaica 4 of documents that can be used during trial, the ability of the Source: Doing Business database. 15 Paying taxes table 14 Where is it easy to pay taxes--and where not? Tax payable and compliance Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Maldives 1 Guinea-Bissau 112 Singapore 2 Cape Verde 117 Kiribati 10 Dominican Republic 139 Mauritius 11 São Tomé and Principe 153 Vanuatu 18 Jamaica 170 Source: Doing Business database. Taxes are essential. Without them there would be no funds for Businesses care about what they get for their taxes and con- schools, hospitals, courts, roads, water, waste collection and tributions, such as the quality of infrastructure and social other public services that help businesses to be more produc- services. Poor countries tend to use businesses as a collection tive. Still, there are good ways and bad ways to collect taxes. point for taxes. Rich countries tend to have lower tax rates The Doing Business tax survey records the effective tax and less complex tax systems. And rich countries get more that a company must pay and the administrative costs of from their taxes. Simple, moderate taxes and fast, cheap ad- doing so. Imagine a medium-size business, TaxpayerCo. that ministration mean less hassle for businesses--and also more started operations last year. Doing Business asked accountants revenue collected and better public services. More burden- in 178 economies to review TaxpayerCo's financial statements some tax regimes create an incentive to evade taxes. and a standard list of transactions the company completed during the year. Respondents were asked how much tax the business must pay and what the process is for doing so. table 15 Who makes paying taxes easy--and who does not? The business starts from the same financial position in Payments (number per year) each country. All the taxes and contributions paid during the Fewest Most second year of operation are recorded. Taxes and contribu- Maldives 1 Guinea-Bissau 46 tions are measured at all levels of government and include Singapore 5 Haiti 53 corporate income tax, turnover tax, all labor contributions Kiribati 7 Cape Verde 57 paid by the company (including mandatory contributions Mauritius 7 Jamaica 72 paid to private pension or insurance funds), property tax, Timor-Leste 15 Dominican Republic 74 property transfer tax, dividend tax, capital gains tax, finan- Time ( hours per year) cial transactions tax, vehicle tax and other small taxes (such Least Most as fuel tax, stamp duty and local taxes). A range of standard Maldives 0 Dominican Republic 286 deductions and exemptions are also recorded. Singapore 49 Guyana 288 St. Lucia 71 Jamaica 414 Three indicators are constructed: Seychelles 76 São Tomé and Principe 424 · Numberoftaxpayments,whichtakesintoaccountthe St.Vincent and the Grenadines 76 Timor-Leste 640 method of payment or withholding, the frequency Total tax rate (% of profit) of payment or withholding and the number of agencies involved for the standard case. Least Most · Time,whichmeasuresthehoursperyearnecessaryto Vanuatu 8.4 St. Kitts and Nevis 52.6 prepare, file and pay the corporate income tax, value Maldives 9.1 Cape Verde 54.0 added or sales tax and labor taxes. Samoa 19.8 Micronesia 58.7 Mauritius 21.7 Marshall Islands 64.9 · Totaltaxrate,whichmeasurestheamountoftaxes Singapore 23.2 Palau 73.0 payable by the company during the second year of operation. This amount, expressed as a percentage of Source: Doing Business database. commercial profit, is the sum of all the different taxes payable after accounting for various deductions and exemptions. 16 Trading across table 16 Where is trade easy--and where not? borders Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Singapore 1 Belize 116 Importing and exporting Mauritius 17 Comoros 119 St. Kitts and Nevis 22 Palau 121 Dominican Republic 35 Vanuatu 142 Tonga 44 Haiti 153 Source: Doing Business database. The benefits of trade are well documented--as are the Documents recorded include port filing documents, obstacles to trade. Tariffs, quotas and distance from large customs declaration and clearance documents, and official markets greatly increase the cost of goods or prevent trad- documents exchanged between the concerned parties. Time ing altogether. But with faster ships and bigger planes, the is recorded in calendar days, from start to finish of each pro- world is shrinking. Global and regional agreements have cedure. Cost measures the fees levied on a 20-foot container brought down trade barriers. Yet Africa's share of global trade in U.S. dollars. All the fees associated with completing the is smaller today than it was 25 years ago. So is the Middle procedures to export or import the goods are included, such East's, excluding oil exports. The reason is simple: many en- as costs for documents, administrative fees for customs clear- trepreneurs face numerous hurdles to exporting or importing ance and technical control, terminal handling charges and goods. They often give up. Others never try. inland transport. The cost measure does not include tariffs Doing Business compiles procedural requirements for or trade taxes. trading a standard shipment of goods by ocean transport. Countries that have efficient customs, good transport Every official procedure--and the associated documents, networks and fewer document requirements--making time and cost--for importing and exporting the goods is compliance with export and import procedures faster and recorded, starting with the contractual agreement between cheaper--are more competitive globally. That leads to more the two parties and ending with delivery of the goods. For exports--and exports are associated with faster growth and importing the goods, the procedures measured range from more jobs. Conversely, a need to file many documents is as- the vessel's arrival at the port of entry to the shipment's de- sociated with more corruption in customs. Faced with long livery at the factory warehouse. For exporting the goods, the delays and frequent demands for bribes, many traders avoid procedures measured range from the packing of the goods at customs altogether. Instead, they smuggle goods across the the factory to their departure from the port of exit. border. That defeats the very purpose in having border con- To make the data comparable across countries, several trol of trade--to levy taxes and ensure high quality of goods. assumptions about the business and the traded goods are used. The business is of medium size, with 100 or more em- ployees, and is located in the periurban area of the country's most populous city. It is a private, limited liability company, domestically owned, formally registered and operating under commercial laws and regulations of the country. The traded goods are ordinary, legally manufactured products, and they travel in a dry-cargo, 20-foot FCL (full container load) con- tainer. 17 table 17 table 18 Who makes importing easy--and who does not? Who makes exporting easy--and who does not? Import documents (number) Export documents (number) Fewest Most Fewest Most Singapore 4 Papua New Guinea 9 Micronesia 3 Maldives 8 Solomon Islands 4 Comoros 10 Singapore 4 São Tomé and Principe 8 Cape Verde 5 Palau 10 Cape Verde 5 Suriname 8 Grenada 5 Haiti 10 Antigua and Barbuda 5 Comoros 10 Marshall Islands 5 Fiji 13 Mauritius 5 Fiji 13 Import time (days) Export time (days) Least Most Least Most Singapore 3 Samoa 31 Singapore 5 Palau 29 Dominican Republic 13 Marshall Islands 33 Dominican Republic 12 Comoros 30 Mauritius 16 Guyana 35 Trinidad and Tobago 14 Guyana 30 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 16 Palau 35 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 15 Micronesia 30 St. Kitts and Nevis 17 Haiti 53 St. Kitts and Nevis 15 Haiti 52 Import cost ($ per container) Export cost ($ per container) Least Most Least Most Singapore 367 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1,769 Singapore 416 Jamaica 1,750 Fiji 570 Seychelles 1,839 Tonga 545 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1,770 São Tomé and Principe 577 Haiti 1,860 Fiji 573 Belize 1,800 Tonga 620 Belize 2,130 Papua New Guinea 584 Vanuatu 1,815 Papua New Guinea 642 Vanuatu 2,225 São Tomé and Principe 690 Seychelles 1,839 Source: Doing Business database. Source: Doing Business database. 18 Enforcing contracts table 19 Where is it easy to enforce contracts--and where not? Court efficiency Easiest Global Most difficult Global (ranked 1­5 in SIDS) rank (ranked 28­32 in SIDS) rank Singapore 4 Dominica 164 Cape Verde 56 Trinidad and Tobago 168 Tonga 58 Belize 170 Marshall Islands 60 Suriname 174 Fiji 62 Timor-Leste 178 Source: Doing Business database. Where contract enforcement is efficient, businesses are more Businesses that have little or no access to efficient courts must likely to engage with new borrowers or customers. Doing rely on other mechanisms, both formal and informal--such as Business tracks the efficiency of the judicial system in resolv- trade associations, social networks, credit bureaus or private ing a commercial dispute, following the step-by-step evolu- information channels--to decide whom to do business with tion of a commercial sale dispute before local courts. The data and under what conditions. Or they might adopt a conserva- are collected through study of the codes of civil procedure tive approach to business, dealing only with a small group and other court regulations as well as surveys completed by of people linked through kinship, ethnic origin or previous local litigation lawyers (and, in a quarter of the countries, by dealings and structuring transactions to forestall disputes. In judges as well). either case economic and social value may be lost. The dispute, between two businesses (the Seller and the The main reason to regulate procedures in commercial Buyer) located in the country's most populous city, concerns dispute resolution is that informal justice is vulnerable to a contract for the sale of goods. The Seller agrees to deliver subversion by the rich and powerful. But heavy regulation the goods, worth 200% of the country's income per capita, to of dispute resolution backfires. Across countries, the more the Buyer. procedures it takes to enforce a contract, the longer the delays After receiving and inspecting the goods, the Buyer con- and the higher the cost. The result: less wealth is created. cludes that their quality is inadequate. The Buyer sends the goods back without paying for them. The Seller disagrees and table 20 argues that their quality is adequate. The Seller seeks full pay- Who makes enforcing contracts easy--and who does not? ment from the Buyer, arguing that the goods cannot be sold to Procedures (number) a third party because they were custom-made for the Buyer. Fewest Most The Seller sues the Buyer before the court in the most popu- Singapore 22 St. Lucia 47 lous city to recover the amount due under the sales agreement Vanuatu 30 Dominica 47 (200% of the country's income per capita). Kiribati 32 St. Kitts and Nevis 47 Micronesia 34 Belize 51 Three indicators of the efficiency of commercial contract Dominican Republic 34 Timor-Leste 51 enforcement are developed: · Numberofprocedures,whichincludesallthosethat Time (days) demand interaction between the parties or between Least Most them and the judge or court officer. Singapore 120 Micronesia 965 · Time,whichcountsthenumberofdaysfromthe Tonga 350 Guinea-Bissau 1,140 moment the plaintiff files the lawsuit in court until Antigua and Barbuda 351 Trinidad and Tobago 1,340 the moment of payment. This measure includes both St. Vincent and the Grenadines 394 Suriname 1,715 the days on which actions take place and the waiting Fiji 397 Timor-Leste 1,800 periods between actions. Cost (% of income per capita) · Cost,whichmeasurestheofficialcostofgoingthrough Least Most court procedures, expressed as a percentage of the claim (assumed to be equivalent to 200% of income Seychelles 14.3 Vanuatu 74.7 per capita). The cost includes court costs, enforcement Maldives 16.5 Solomon Islands 78.9 costs and attorney fees where the use of attorneys is Mauritius 17.4 Comoros 89.4 mandatory or common. Singapore 17.8 Papua New Guinea 110.3 Samoa 19.7 Timor-Leste 163.2 Source: Doing Business database. 19 Closing a business table 21 Where is it easy to close a business--and where not? Bankruptcy Global Global Easiest rank Most difficult rank Singapore 2 Grenada 178 Jamaica 22 São Tomé and Principe 178 Belize 24 Seychelles 178 St. Lucia 43 St. Kitts and Nevis 178 Vanuatu 49 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 178 Source: Doing Business database. The economic crises of the 1990s in emerging markets--from Bottlenecks in bankruptcy cut into the amount claim- East Asia to Latin America, from Russia to Mexico--raised ants can recover. In countries where bankruptcy is used, this concerns about the design of bankruptcy systems and the is a strong deterrent to investment. Access to credit shrinks, ability of such systems to help reorganize viable companies and nonperforming loans and financial risk grow because and close down unviable ones. In countries where bankruptcy creditors cannot recover overdue loans. Conversely, efficient is inefficient, unviable businesses linger for years, keeping bankruptcy laws can encourage entrepreneurs. The freedom assets and human capital from being reallocated to more to fail, and to do so through an efficient process, puts people productive uses. and capital to their most effective use. The result is more pro- The Doing Business indicators identify weaknesses in ductive businesses and more jobs. the bankruptcy law as well as the main procedural and administrative bottlenecks in the bankruptcy process. In many developing countries bankruptcy is so inefficient that table 22 Who makes bankruptcy the most efficient--and who the least? creditors hardly ever use it. In countries such as these, reform Time (days) would best focus on improving contract enforcement outside Least Most bankruptcy. Singapore 0.8 Cape Verde no practice The data on closing a business are developed using a Belize 1.0 Seychelles no practice standard set of case assumptions to track a company going Palau 1.0 St. Vincent and the Grenadines no practice through the step-by-step procedures of the bankruptcy pro- Solomon Islands 1.0 Timor-Leste no practice cess. It is assumed that the company is a domestically owned, Jamaica 1.1 Trinidad and Tobago no practice limited liability corporation operating a hotel in the country's Cost (% of estate) most populous city. The company has 201 employees, 1 main Least Most secured creditor and 50 unsecured creditors. Assumptions Singapore 1 Cape Verde no practice are also made about the debt structure and future cash flows. Maldives 4 Seychelles no practice The case is designed so that the company has a higher value Antigua and Barbuda 7 St. Vincent and the Grenadines no practice as a going concern--that is, the efficient outcome is either St. Lucia 9 Timor-Leste no practice reorganization or sale as a going concern, not piecemeal liq- Mauritius 15 Trinidad and Tobago no practice uidation. The data are derived from questionnaires answered Recovery rate (cents on the dollar) by attorneys at private law firms. Most Least Three measures are constructed from the survey re- Singapore 91.3 Guinea-Bissau 0.0 sponses: the time to go through the insolvency process, the Jamaica 64.3 Kiribati 0.0 cost to go through the process and the recovery rate--how Belize 63.5 São Tomé and Principe 0.0 much of the insolvency estate is recovered by stakeholders, St. Lucia 41.8 Seychelles 0.0 taking into account the time, cost, depreciation of assets and Vanuatu 39.3 St. Kitts and Nevis 0.0 the outcome of the insolvency proceeding. Source: Doing Business database. 20 Ease of doing business The ease of doing business index ranks economies from 1 to The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. It 178. The index is calculated as the ranking on the simple av- does not account for a country's proximity to large markets, erage of country percentile rankings on each of the 10 topics the quality of its infrastructure services (other than services covered in Doing Business 2008. The ranking on each topic is related to trading across borders), the security of property the simple average of the percentile rankings on its compo- from theft and looting, macroeconomic conditions or the nent indicators. strength of underlying institutions. There remains a large un- If an economy has no laws or regulations covering a spe- finished agenda for research into what regulation constitutes cific area--for example, bankruptcy--it receives a "no prac- binding constraints, what package of reforms is most effective tice" or "not possible" mark. Similarly, an economy receives a and how these issues are shaped by the country context. The "no practice" or "not possible" mark if regulation exists but is Doing Business indicators provide a new empirical data set never used in practice or if a competing regulation prohibits that may improve understanding of these issues. such practice. Either way, such a mark puts the country at the Doing Business also uses a simple method to determine the bottom of the rankings on the relevant indicator. top reformers (see table 1). First, it selects the economies that Hereisoneexampleofhowtherankingontheeaseof reformed in 3 or more of the 10 Doing Business topics (table doing business is constructed. In Iceland it takes 5 proce- on opposite page). This year 21 economies met this criterion: dures, 5 days and 3% of annual income per capita in fees to Armenia, Bhutan, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, open a business. The minimum capital required amounts to Croatia,theCzechRepublic,Egypt,Georgia,Ghana,Guate- 14% of income per capita. On these 4 indicators Iceland ranks mala,Honduras,Kenya,FYRMacedonia,Mauritius,Mozam- in the 6th, 2nd, 10th and 55th percentiles. So Iceland ranks bique, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. Second, in the 18th percentile--the average of the 4 percentiles--on Doing Business ranks these economies on the increase in their the ease of starting a business. It ranks in the 46th percentile ranking on the ease of doing business from the previous year. on protecting investors, 11th on trading across borders, 8th Forexample,Croatia,HondurasandKenyaeachreformedin on enforcing contracts, 6th on closing a business and so on. 4 aspects of business regulation. Croatia's ranking improved Higher rankings indicate simpler regulation and stronger from120to97,Honduras'sfrom125to121andKenya'sfrom protection of property rights. The simple average of Iceland's 82 to 72. These changes represent an improvement in the rank- percentile rankings on all topics is 19%. When all countries ings by 23 places, 4 places and 10 places, respectively. Croatia are ordered by their average percentile ranking, Iceland is in thereforeranksaheadofKenyainthelistoftop10reformers. 10th place. Hondurasdoesn'tmakethelist. More complex aggregation methods--such as princi- pal components and unobserved components--yield nearly identical rankings.1 The choice of aggregation method has little influence on the rankings because the 10 sets of indica- tors in Doing Business provide sufficiently broad coverage across topics. So Doing Business uses the method most likely Notes to lead to reform--the simplest method. 1. See Djankov and others (2005). REFORMS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES 21 RefoRms in 2006/07 3 Positive reform Dealing Trading 7 Negative reform Starting with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying across Enforcing Closing Economy a business licenses workers property credit investors taxes borders contracts a business Antigua and Barbuda Belize Cape Verde Comoros Dominica Dominican Republic 3 3 7 3 Fiji 3 Grenada Guinea-Bissau 3 Guyana Haiti 3 Jamaica Kiribati Maldives Marshall Islands Mauritius 3 3 3 3 3 3 Micronesia 3 Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa São Tomé and Principe Seychelles 3 Singapore Solomon Islands St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Timor-Leste 3 Tonga 3 Trinidad and Tobago 3 3 Vanuatu 7 23 CASE STuDy: REVISING THE RuLES AT THE MAGISTRATE'S CouRT Case management and mediation in the Pacific Islands-- Tonga leads the way A low ranking for the ease of contract enforcement in registrar. But his good understanding of computers had been Doing Business 2007 prompted Tonga's government to noticed by Ford, and also his enthusiasm for a computerized contemplate reform. This paper describes the initiatives case management system. The other staff member, word in Tonga's courts, including revisions to procedural rules, processor operator Loma Lausii, had never been outside of the introduction of electronic case management, and Tonga, but the novelty of the idea only motivated her further. mediation, that were instrumental in improving court Both selections proved inspired. Sione quickly became an efficiency. expert on computers and their capabilities for case manage- ment. Loma led the team, working overtime to digitize old Computerization, computer staff and computer files. training Security for computers, equal comfort for staff Anthony Ford, a lawyer with more than 30 years of prac- ticeinNewZealand,hadjustbeennamedChiefJusticein The court saw the need for a secure computer room in the September 2006 when the Minister of Justice told him that wakeofNovember2006rioting.Findingabuildingbudget the Cabinet was not happy with Tonga's low rating in Doing this time of the year was cumbersome, but Australia agreed Business 2007. In the report, Tonga ranked 126 (of, then, to cover the expenses. The work was carried out in January 175 countries) in the efficiency of contract enforcement, the 2007. The room and adjacent office were now air-conditioned country's worst rating among all ten indicators. The Minister andfittedwithnewcomputers,printer,andfurniture.Having asked Ford to see what could be done to improve the ranking an expert from the Federal Court of Australia give on-the- before the 2008 edition was published. spot training was a critical follow-up. To Ford it was clear that inadequate technology was While staff in the computer room now enjoyed an air- hampering commercial litigation. At the Supreme Court, the conditioned workplace, others did not. Because of a lack of country's higher civil jurisdiction, computers were not made funding, the chief justice paid personally for the installation available to staff until 2002. Because staff was not taught to of an air-conditioning unit for the general office. When asked use the computers, court records continued to be compiled about it, Ford said, "in the overall scheme of things this may manually even in 2006. Concurrently, talks were underway have only been a small gesture, but it resulted in a highly with the Federal Court of Australia about introducing elec- spirited workforce." tronic case management to reduce the backlog of hundreds of cases. After the release of Doing Business 2007, comput- Weeding out dormant files erization of the court filing system became a priority. The chief justice contacted the Federal Court in Sydney and put During computerization, all case files had to be examined. electronic case management on a fast-track. While systematically perusing every document in the court's files, staff discovered several hundred dormant cases. The Seeking the motivated new Supreme Court rules, in force since April 2007, provided that such cases could be struck down, but only after giving At the beginning of 2007 the court began computerizing old the plaintiff 28 days notice. It was obvious from the sheer files. The chief justice selected two court staff to travel to Aus- number of files that the notice procedure would be time- traliaforaone-weekcourseincasemanagement.Neitherone consuming. It was also clear that in many cases such notices had a traditional IT background. Sione Taione had been em- would serve no useful purpose because file contents indicated ployed as a court interpreter and recently appointed deputy that litigation would not go forward. 24 DOING BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES 2008 For these reasons, the chief justice decided to strike all When informed of the proposed change to the rules, its presi- caseswherenoactionhadbeentakenfortwoyears.Hefur- dent favored striking alternative dispute resolution from the ther instructed that proceedings would be reinstated should text.Hisconcernswereultimatelyaccommodatedbymaking the plaintiff complain about the lack of the 28-day notice. In mediation, initially at the judge's discretion, contingent on the end, 518 actions were struck and only 10 reinstated upon both parties' consent. request from the plaintiff. The new rules came into effect on 12 April 2007. To With only current files in the electronic system, the encourage parties to give their consent, nothing said in me- Supreme Court now tracks all cases to ensure none becomes diation can be used in a later trial, should mediation fail. The inactive. On administrative order, the registrar must refer to mediators may report to the judge only about the progress the chief justice any civil litigation file that remains inactive and the outcome of the process. Order 45 also states that for three months. In such cases, an order is issued stating that reference to mediation is neither justification to stay proceed- unless further steps are taken in the proceedings within 28 ings, nor cause to delay the trial preparation. days, the action will be struck. To reassure parties, the rules require mediation to be ex- ercised by trained or sufficiently experienced persons. Tonga Setting time limits had no formally recognized mediators. With assistance from the Federal Court of Australia, the deputy registrar was sent The computerized case management system is based on the to Sydney where he completed one-week of training in a well- one used by the Australian Federal Court. It uses an off- recognized mediation program. Subsequently, the registrar the-shelf spreadsheet program to store all case information, traveledtoWellington,NewZealand,forasimilartraining. including a case's complete timeline. Long delays are detected In addition, because the court's registrars are well-respected automatically. This allows the judge to remain on top of the members of the Tongan society, they are particularly suited entire docket without being caught up in details of case ad- for the task. ministration. Using computers also allows performance measurement. Talk about it The court in Sydney, Australia--which ranks 11 in the Doing Business contract enforcement indicator--maintains a goal of Tonga extensively publicized the benefits of mediation dur- disposing of 98% of their civil cases within 18 months. After ing its Inaugural Law Week, a one week conference rallying discussions with his court staff, Ford set the goal of disposing judges from the Pacific island jurisdictions in November of 90% of cases within a period of two years. This number 2007. On opening day, the chief justice spoke on a radio takes into account the existing backlog of cases and has so far show, to the press, and on television. The Federal Court of proved feasible. Australia and the World Bank assisted in the production of a The court strove for efficiencies in other aspects of the mock mediation DVD in Tongan, which was screened nightly judicial process. Consistently informing the public of relevant on Tongan television during Law Week. One hundred copies decisions through the local newspapers will commonly dis- of the DVD were distributed so that every village committee courage similar cases from being brought before the court, andchurchcommitteeintheKingdomofTongareceivedone. alleviating the burden on the court in turn. To kick-start the This DVD had a tremendous impact in getting the mediation mechanism, the chief justice slashed an erstwhile prohibitive message to the Tongan public, according to Ford. copy fee for journalists and ordered that copies of all deci- sions with relevance for the public be sent to the press. The Mediation usage continues to grow, freeing up court re- computer system itself has already seen further refinements sources. Most litigants now declare their consent, and eight like the gathering data on juvenile offenders, something of in ten reach out-of-court settlements. Ultimate recognition of interesttoUNICEF. its success came from the Tongan government, the country's largest litigator, which agreed to alternative dispute resolution Mediation ­ successfully implemented in December 2007, after initially opposing it. The Supreme Court is currently exploring possibilities to having a building Chief Justice Ford included a provision for mediation when he solely dedicated to mediation. redrafted the Supreme Court Rules at the end of 2006. Media- tion was virtually unheard of in Tonga. Some initial resistance to the rules from the Law Society was therefore anticipated. CASE STuDY: TONGA 25 Reforming--all staff on board The right time for reform Chief Justice Ford notes the importance of staff support when The implementation of the reform comes at a time when the introducing a new system, especially when the reformer courts in Tonga are as busy as ever, with approximately 500 comes from a different country. additional criminal cases coming through the system arising From the outset, court staff was excited about the new outofriotsinNovember2006.Thereformprocedureshave case management program and the heightened atmosphere enabled the courts to handle the huge influx of additional ofefficiencyaroundtheoffice.AtonepointtheHeadOffice cases with reasonable diligence. Once this unexpected case of the Ministry of Justice even complained that staff was load is cleared the court should make further significant working until 9 p.m. on some nights (not getting paid for the inroads into the time taken to enforce contract claims. The overtime). Ford instructed staff to work regular work-week Tongan judicial system is on its way of becoming recognized hours, but immediately noted that they responded by work- as one of the most efficient in the Pacific Islands. The neigh- ing on Saturdays. It is also for this that that the chief justice boring islands of Tuvalu recently expressed interest into the looks with pride on his court as the most efficient among the case management system, and the registrar may travel there Pacific Island jurisdictions. to pass on the knowledge. The chief justice has in the mean- time requested a survey of user satisfaction, to be repeated Next in line: the Magistrate's Court every three years if possible, to gauge progress over time. Also at the end of 2006, Tonga had increased the jurisdiction Results of the Magistrate's Court for civil cases from 1,000 to 10,000 Pa'anga, roughly USD5,000. The number of cases eligible for In October 2007, the World Bank highlighted in Doing Busi- the less formalized, yet more expeditious, Magistrate's Court ness 2008 that Tonga's Supreme Court had cut the average is not insignificant, alleviating the burden on the higher juris- time to enforce contracts from 510 days to 350. While this diction. Moreover, the measure is building judicial capacity. does not make the court the world's fastest, the improvement An improved command of law is required of magistrates now assured the country the title of top reformer in the category dealing with disputes 10 times as important in value. The ini- of contract enforcement. Remarkably, striking close to 100% tially hesitant parliament agreed to the increased responsibil- of dormant cases, placing all others on a strict timetable, ity only against a guideline making judicial education manda- introducing mediation, and increasing the jurisdiction of the tory.InNovember2007,workbegantoextendtheSupreme Magistrate's Court, was all achieved in just over one year. Court case management system to the Magistrate's Court to gain equal efficiency there. The new Magistrate's Court rules Anthony D. Ford was appointed Chief Justice of the Kingdom now provide for mediation at the lower jurisdiction as well. of Tonga on September 11, 2006. He is now in his 8th year as a Three more Tongans have been trained as mediators, and Judge in Tonga. Before that he worked with Bell Gully, one of commenced working on civil cases in the Magistrate's Court. the largest law firms in New Zealand, for more than 30 years. 26 What to expect Doing Business 2009 will bring updates to the 10 sets of indi- Not paying bribes cators reported in this year's edition. It may also incorporate some further improvements in methodology. In June 2005 the U.S. media reported that the previous year a Beyond this, Doing Business 2009 will reflect research on defense contractor had bought the house of a U.S. congress- 3 new topics: not paying bribes, opportunities for women and man, Randy Cunningham, for $1,675,000. A month later the infrastructure (starting with electricity). It will present the contractor put the property back on the market, where it findings either as new analysis on the benefits of reforms or as eventually sold for $975,000. At the time Cunningham was a new or developing sets of indicators. Whether the analysis and member of the defense appropriations committee. Soon after indicators become a standard part of Doing Business depends purchasing the house, the contractor began to receive tens of on the quality of the research and the ability to sustain the new millions of dollars in defense and intelligence contracts. indicators. Quality will be judged by academic peers, through Cunningham resigned in late 2005 after pleading the journal refereeing process. Sustainability will be judged on guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under- the basis of the cost of producing these indicators every year. reporting his income the previous year. In March 2006 he re- The choice of these research topics is natural. The re- ceived a prison sentence of 8 years and 4 months. search to construct indicators on not paying bribes and on This case would have taken longer to resolve had Cun- infrastructure is motivated by evidence from the World Bank ningham not underreported his income in the disclosure Enterprise Surveys on the main obstacles businesses face.1 forms that all members of the U.S. Congress file annually. The Corruption and poor access to infrastructure appear among ability of the media and prosecutors to access these disclo- the top constraints to business growth in most African coun- sures and point out inconsistencies made all the difference. tries, in many Middle Eastern and South Asian countries and That is the focus of ongoing research by the Doing Busi- in some Central American countries (figure 6). ness team: the ability of citizens, the media and prosecutors Earlier editions of Doing Business have shown that to monitor whether the actions of government officials are burdensome business regulations hurt women the most. But dictated by their private interests.2 In every country the texts more analysis is needed on what types of reforms most ben- of relevant laws and regulations are collected. As for existing efit working women. Expanding job and business opportuni- ties for women is likely to have a large impact on economic FIGURE 6 Top obstacles to enterprises in Africa growth. Precisely how large can be measured if new data are collected and analyzed. That's what the Doing Business team Firms ranking each factor as the main obstacle to rm growth and performance in 2006 (%) is set to do. This chapter describes the analysis so far and the work Electricity 37.2 taking place this year. The research on not paying bribes is Access to 14.5 most advanced, followed by the analysis on opportunities for nance women and the preliminary work on infrastructure. Informality 8.3 Crime and disorder 5.0 Corruption 3.9 Access to land 3.6 0 10 20 30 40 Source: World Bank Enterprise Surveys. WhAT TO ExPECT 27 Doing Business topics, local partners are identified as contrib- of obtaining these disclosures is documented in a time-and- utors, in this case partners knowledgeable about the rules on motion study like those done for existing Doing Business indi- public procurement and disclosure. Two global partnerships, cators. The disclosure forms received are then studied to assess one with PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal Services and one the extensiveness and completeness of the information filed. with Lex Mundi law firms, are also helping verify data. What remains to be done? The analysis of collected data In 80% of countries that require members of the legisla- hasstarted,withafirstresearchpaperexpectedinNovember ture to disclose their financial or business interests, disclosure 2007. The findings will then be subjected to peer review. requirements also apply to the executive. In countries where A second area of work is to compare these newly con- there are separate regulations for each branch, both sets are structed indicators with existing ones. Three previous ini- compiled. tiatives have informed the discussion on transparency. The Some examples: OECD high-income countries require first, conducted by Transparency International, is based on extensive disclosure on the business interests of public of- a number of perception surveys. The second, by the World ficials. All but one require annual public disclosure on such Bank Institute, has similar sources of data but uses a more things as sources of income other than the official's salary, rigorous methodology for aggregation. The third is the most all equity stakes held and all positions held on company recent, conducted by Global Integrity.3 Like the ongoing boards of directors--as well as disclosure of interests when Doing Business research in this area, it also covers public dis- deciding on laws or contracts that may affect their income closure. Unlike the Doing Business research, its main source of (for example, a contract that may be awarded to a business in information is local experts on disclosure requirements, not which a public official has a stake). In South Asia only a third an analysis of the text of the law. of countries require such disclosure. Even where public officials are required to make such Opportunities for women disclosures,therearedifferences.InAustria,NewZealand, SwitzerlandandtheUnitedKingdomlegislatorsarerequired The Doing Business project commits to a 2-year research to disclose the names of all companies in which they have a program on reforms that improve the job and business op- business interest. In other countries legislators must report portunities for women. The analysis will be developed in 3 only the value of equity holdings and other investments, with- directions. out naming the companies in which assets are held. First, it will identify laws and regulations that discriminate Many countries prohibit legislators from serving on against women. For example, until 2006 Lesotho's law hindered company boards or as company officers. These include the women from becoming landowners and engaging in legal acts CzechRepublic,Georgia,Israel,RussiaandVietnam.Others, such as entering into a contract. Similarly, 2 dozen countries such as Lithuania and Slovenia, go even further, prohibiting have labor laws that prevent women from having the same any employment outside parliament. freedomtoworkasmen.OneexampleisKuwait,whichinJune Across the current research sample, 79% of countries 2007 passed a law prohibiting women from working between 8 require disclosure of interests. Among these, more than half p.m. and 7 a.m., even if they want to. A few countries consider mandate that these disclosures be available for public scru- women legal minors and do not allow them standing in court. tiny.Halfadozencountries,mostlyinLatinAmericaandthe Instead, a woman must be represented by her husband, father Caribbean, allow disclosure to the public only when certain or brother. And several countries do not allow married women conditions are met. to start a business on their own, requiring their husband's Physical access to disclosures also varies. In the United consent. KingdomdisclosuresareavailableontheHouseofCommons Several other areas of regulation, now beyond the scope website. In Pakistan they are published in the official gazette of Doing Business, also reduce opportunities for women to each year. In Moldova the registrar will e-mail you disclosures find a job or start a business. One is inheritance law. In some upon request. In more than a dozen countries you would have regions, such as East Africa, women have fewer inheritance to pay the registrar a visit to access disclosures. In some, you rights than men. That makes it harder to show collateral to would need to submit a request to the chairing committee the bank when starting a business. More important, it some- of the parliament, which decides whether to grant access to times makes it impossible for women to provide for their disclosures. children if their husband leaves or dies. Other regulatory re- In every country where public disclosure is mandated quirements--such as the need to obtain a husband's consent by law, the research team has requested the files of the first before getting a passport, or to locate a business in licensed 5 members of parliament in alphabetical order. The process commercial premises--may also indirectly affect women's 28 DOING BuSINESS IN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES 2008 ability to participate fully in business. The research will study Infrastructure the legal restrictions that women face in such areas. Second, analyses will identify the traditional reforms A variety of indicators on infrastructure services are available. --as captured in existing Doing Business indicators--that But these typically measure outcomes: kilometers of paved have the biggest benefits for women. Reforms that reduce roads, number of telephone lines, percentage of households informality disproportionately benefit women, because they connected to running water. Indicators like these have 2 make up a large share of the informal economy. This year's limits. First, since building infrastructure is expensive, the report documents the link between the ease of doing busi- cross-country comparisons show an obvious pattern: rich ness and the shares of women among workers and among countries have good infrastructure, and poor countries don't. entrepreneurs (see figure 1.7, page 7). In the next 2 years Second, if a reformist government wants to make its mark by research will focus on reforms that do the most to increase improving infrastructure services, it can do little to change these shares. This work will use the World Bank Enterprise theseindicatorsinashorttime.Heavyinvestmentisneeded. Surveys, which have data on women entrepreneurs and the What a reformer can do is adopt regulation that fa- share of women in total employment since 2005. cilitates expansion in infrastructure services. A reformer Third, the Doing Business team will prepare case studies can also simplify the process of hooking up to these services on women entrepreneurs and describe the reasons for their for new businesses. These are the 2 aspects of infrastructure success as well as the main obstacles they face in expanding services on which the Doing Business team is constructing their business. These case studies may identify additional new indicators. reforms that the study of laws and regulations might have The first set of indicators builds on a specific case: an missed. In particular, even after a government reforms, the unexpected rise in electricity demand in the country has prevailing practice takes some time to change. created opportunities for expansion. The case study docu- In areas such as these, the case studies can lead to com- ments the process that a private or public utility goes through munication campaigns to promote the benefits of reform. In to procure the components needed to extend the electricity Uganda, for example, women's groups formed a coalition to distribution grid. lobby for reforms in business law that would especially benefit The second set looks at the process of obtaining a power women. The result: more awareness of the need for reform and connection, a water connection and a telephone line for a new bills drafted by the Ministry of Finance, now awaiting ap- newly constructed building. The number of procedures for proval by the attorney general. These include the Companies getting these services, and the associated time and cost, are Bill, the Chattels Transfer Act and personal property and recorded. The study does not compare prices of these services securities laws. after the building is connected. That would involve detailed Findings in these 3 areas of research will be reported in knowledge of subsidy policies, which is beyond the scope of a stand-alone publication on opportunities for women. Just Doing Business. as for existing Doing Business indicators, all research will be subjected to peer review at academic journals. Notes 1. The World Bank Enterprise Surveys collect information on conducted. Data for more than 100 countries are available at the main constraints that businesses perceive as well as some http://www hard data on the time and cost of complying with particu- .enterprisesurveys.org. lar regulations. The surveys in Latin America are done in 2. The research is done jointly with scholars at cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank. DartmouthCollege,HarvardUniversityandthe Those in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are UniversityofNice. done in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruc- 3. For information, go to http://www.globalintegrity.org/ and tion and Development. Each year more than 30 surveys are lookforGlobalIntegrityIndex2006. 29 Doing business indicators for Small Island Developing States 30 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 Antigua and Dominican Barbuda Belize Cape Verde Comoros Dominica Republic Fiji Grenada Ease of doing business (small states rank) 5 8 26 28 17 23 4 15 Ease of doing business (global rank) 41 59 132 147 77 99 36 70 Starting a buSineSS (smallstatEsrank) 7 25 29 28 5 20 16 8 Procedures (number) 7 9 12 11 5 9 8 6 time (days) 21 44 52 23 19 22 46 20 Cost (% of income per capita) 11.8 53.1 40.1 188.4 27.1 31.1 25.3 31.7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 0.0 53.4 280.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Dealing with licenSeS (smallstatEsrank) 11 2 26 20 17 24 12 9 Procedures (number) 14 11 18 18 12 17 16 9 time (days) 157 66 120 164 219 214 114 149 Cost (% of income per capita) 26.3 18.5 718.3 77.8 74.4 116.1 40.8 31.0 eMPlOYing wOrkerS (smallstatEsrank) 17 12 29 30 22 28 8 18 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 22 33 39 11 56 22 44 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 20 40 60 20 40 20 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 0 60 40 20 0 0 0 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 10 14 44 46 17 32 14 21 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 9 4 17 0 7 14 9 5 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 52 24 91 100 58 88 2 29 ReGisteRinG pRopeRty (small statEs rank) 9 18 19 12 11 14 10 23 Procedures (number) 5 8 6 5 4 7 3 8 time (days) 26 60 83 24 40 60 48 77 Cost (% of property value) 13.0 4.7 7.8 20.8 13.5 5.1 12.0 7.4 GettinG CReDit (small statEs rank) 18 6 5 25 9 2 4 9 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 7 5 3 6 4 5 6 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 0 3 0 0 6 4 0 Public registry coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 20.3 0.0 0.0 13.3 0.0 0.0 Private bureau coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 35.4 41.2 0.0 pRoteCtinG inVestoRs (small statEs rank) 4 21 22 22 4 22 11 4 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 3 1 6 4 5 3 4 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 4 5 1 8 0 8 8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 6 6 5 7 7 7 7 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 4.3 4.0 4.0 6.3 4.0 6.0 6.3 pAyinG tAxes (small statEs rank) 27 13 29 12 19 30 14 17 Payments (number) 45 41 57 20 38 74 33 30 time (hours per year) 184 147 100 100 147 286 140 140 Profit tax (%) 31.2 21.6 22.0 27.2 26.1 28.6 28.2 27.6 labor tax and contributions (%) 9.5 7.0 18.5 0.0 7.9 9.5 10.2 5.6 Other taxes (%) 6.2 2.2 13.5 21.6 3.1 2.0 0.2 12.1 total tax rate (% of profit) 46.8 30.8 54.0 48.8 37.1 40.2 38.5 45.3 tRADinG ACRoss BoRDeRs (small statEs rank) 10 28 8 29 14 4 27 9 Documents to export (number) 5 7 5 10 7 6 13 6 time to export (days) 19 23 21 30 16 12 25 19 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,107 1,800 1,024 971 1,197 815 573 820 Documents to import (number) 6 6 5 10 8 7 13 5 time to import (days) 19 26 21 21 18 13 25 23 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,174 2,130 1,024 974 1,107 1,015 570 1,178 enFoRCinG A ContRACt (small statEs rank) 10 30 2 24 28 13 5 27 Procedures (number) 45 51 37 43 47 34 34 47 time (days) 351 892 465 506 681 460 397 723 Cost (% of debt) 22.7 27.5 24.1 89.4 36.0 40.9 38.9 32.6 ClosinG A Business (small statEs rank) 7 3 21 21 21 17 12 21 time (years) 3.0 1.0 no practice no practice no practice 3.5 1.8 no practice Cost (% of estate) 7 23 no practice no practice no practice 38 38 no practice recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 35.7 63.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 8.4 20.2 0.0 Doing Business inDiCatoRs 31 Guinea- Marshall Bissau Guyana Haiti Jamaica Kiribati Maldives islands Mauritius Ease of doing business (small states rank) 32 24 29 12 16 9 21 2 Ease of doing business (global rank) 176 104 148 63 73 60 89 27 Starting a buSineSS (smallstatEsrank) 32 23 31 3 22 10 4 1 Procedures (number) 17 8 12 6 6 5 5 6 time (days) 233 44 202 8 21 9 17 7 Cost (% of income per capita) 255.5 87.2 133.9 8.7 56.6 13.4 17.7 5.3 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 1006.6 0.0 32.2 0.0 30.6 5.8 0.0 0.0 Dealing with licenSeS (smallstatEsrank) 29 22 32 23 21 6 3 14 Procedures (number) 15 12 11 10 14 9 10 18 time (days) 167 222 1,179 236 160 118 55 107 Cost (% of income per capita) 2607.0 313.9 817.8 438.4 629.3 39.9 36.8 43.3 eMPlOYing wOrkerS (smallstatEsrank) 31 24 15 14 10 4 1 23 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 67 33 22 11 0 0 0 0 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 60 20 40 0 0 0 0 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 70 20 0 0 50 0 0 50 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 66 24 21 4 17 0 0 23 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 22 8 11 12 8 0 11 6 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 87 56 17 61 4 9 0 35 ReGisteRinG pRopeRty (small statEs rank) 28 5 20 16 7 30 31 25 Procedures (number) 9 6 5 5 5 no practice no practice 6 time (days) 211 34 405 54 513 no practice no practice 210 Cost (% of property value) 5.4 4.5 6.5 13.5 0.1 no practice no practice 10.8 GettinG CReDit (small statEs rank) 18 25 13 13 25 18 30 9 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 3 3 5 3 4 2 5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 Public registry coverage index (% of adults) 0.9 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 38.6 Private bureau coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 pRoteCtinG inVestoRs (small statEs rank) 22 16 29 16 11 16 28 2 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 6 5 2 4 6 0 2 6 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 1 5 3 8 5 8 0 8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 6 4 4 7 8 8 9 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4.0 5.3 3.0 5.3 6.0 5.3 3.3 7.7 pAyinG tAxes (small statEs rank) 28 26 25 32 3 1 22 4 Payments (number) 46 34 53 72 7 1 21 7 time (hours per year) 208 288 160 414 120 0 128 161 Profit tax (%) 14.9 26.9 23.3 28.6 23.4 0.0 0.0 10.8 labor tax and contributions (%) 24.8 8.8 12.4 13.0 8.5 0.0 11.8 3.6 Other taxes (%) 6.1 3.3 4.3 9.7 0.0 9.1 53.0 7.3 total tax rate (% of profit) 45.9 39.0 40.0 51.3 31.8 9.1 64.9 21.7 tRADinG ACRoss BoRDeRs (small statEs rank) 25 23 32 21 22 26 6 2 Documents to export (number) 6 7 8 6 6 8 5 5 time to export (days) 27 30 52 21 21 21 21 17 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,445 850 1,650 1,750 1,550 1,200 765 728 Documents to import (number) 6 8 10 6 7 9 5 6 time to import (days) 26 35 53 22 21 20 33 16 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,749 856 1,860 1,350 1,550 1,200 765 673 enFoRCinG A ContRACt (small statEs rank) 21 9 15 16 8 14 4 11 Procedures (number) 41 36 35 34 32 41 36 37 time (days) 1,140 581 508 565 660 665 476 750 Cost (% of debt) 25.0 25.2 42.6 45.6 25.8 16.5 27.4 17.4 ClosinG A Business (small statEs rank) 21 15 19 2 21 13 14 8 time (years) no practice 3.0 5.7 1.1 no practice 6.7 2.0 1.7 Cost (% of estate) no practice 29 30 18 no practice 4 38 15 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0.0 17.4 3.1 64.3 0.0 18.2 17.9 34.3 32 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 papua new são tomé solomon Micronesia palau Guinea samoa and principe seychelles singapore islands Ease of doing business (small states rank) 25 19 20 10 30 22 1 18 Ease of doing business (global rank) 112 82 84 61 163 90 1 79 Starting a buSineSS (smallstatEsrank) 13 15 18 24 26 14 2 21 Procedures (number) 7 8 8 9 10 9 5 7 time (days) 16 28 56 35 144 38 5 57 Cost (% of income per capita) 137 4.7 26.4 41.3 94.5 8.7 0.8 58.9 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 12.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Dealing with licenSeS (smallstatEsrank) 7 17 31 16 30 19 4 15 Procedures (number) 14 25 24 18 13 19 11 12 time (days) 73 118 217 88 255 144 102 62 Cost (% of income per capita) 19.7 6.1 106.3 95.4 825.9 46.5 22.9 518.0 eMPlOYing wOrkerS (smallstatEsrank) 6 5 13 7 32 27 2 19 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 11 11 11 50 33 0 11 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 0 20 20 80 20 0 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 0 0 0 60 50 0 20 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 7 4 10 10 63 34 0 17 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 6 10 6 6 25 13 8 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 0 0 39 9 91 39 4 44 ReGisteRinG pRopeRty (small statEs rank) 32 2 8 6 24 3 1 27 Procedures (number) no practice 5 4 5 7 4 3 10 time (days) no practice 14 72 147 62 33 9 297 Cost (% of property value) no practice 0.4 5.1 1.8 12.6 7.0 2.8 4.9 GettinG CReDit (small statEs rank) 6 30 13 18 13 25 1 18 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 7 2 5 4 5 3 9 4 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 Public registry coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Private bureau coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 42.7 0.0 pRoteCtinG inVestoRs (small statEs rank) 30 30 11 4 22 14 1 14 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 0 0 5 5 5 4 10 3 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 0 5 6 1 8 9 7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 8 8 8 6 5 9 7 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 2.7 2.7 6.0 6.3 4.0 5.7 9.3 5.7 pAyinG tAxes (small statEs rank) 20 21 23 15 31 10 2 8 Payments (number) 21 19 33 37 41 16 5 33 time (hours per year) 128 128 206 224 424 76 49 80 Profit tax (%) 0.0 0.0 22.2 12.8 36.9 22.4 6.3 21.2 labor tax and contributions (%) 6.8 6.5 10.9 7.0 6.8 25.4 14.1 8.5 Other taxes (%) 52.0 66.5 8.6 0.0 7.4 0.5 2.8 3.0 total tax rate (% of profit) 58.7 73.0 41.7 19.8 51.0 48.4 23.2 32.6 tRADinG ACRoss BoRDeRs (small statEs rank) 17 30 15 24 20 16 1 11 Documents to export (number) 3 6 7 7 8 6 4 7 time to export (days) 30 29 26 27 27 17 5 24 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,145 1,160 584 1,010 690 1,839 416 1,056 Documents to import (number) 6 10 9 7 9 5 4 4 time to import (days) 30 35 29 31 29 19 3 21 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,145 1,110 642 1,375 577 1,839 367 1,238 enFoRCinG A ContRACt (small statEs rank) 22 23 26 12 19 6 1 17 Procedures (number) 34 38 43 44 43 38 22 37 time (days) 965 885 591 455 405 720 120 455 Cost (% of debt) 66.0 35.3 110.3 19.7 34.8 14.3 17.8 78.9 ClosinG A Business (small statEs rank) 20 6 10 16 21 21 1 11 time (years) 5.3 1.0 3.0 2.5 no practice no practice 0.8 1.0 Cost (% of estate) 38 23 23 38 no practice no practice 1 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 3.1 38.2 23.9 15.2 0.0 0.0 91.3 23.3 Doing Business inDiCatoRs 33 st. Vincent st. Kitts and and the trinidad and nevis st. lucia Grenadines suriname timor-leste tonga tobago Vanuatu Ease of doing business (small states rank) 13 3 7 27 31 6 14 11 Ease of doing business (global rank) 64 34 54 142 168 47 67 62 Starting a buSineSS (smallstatEsrank) 19 12 8 30 27 6 11 17 Procedures (number) 9 6 8 13 9 4 9 8 time (days) 46 40 12 694 82 32 43 39 Cost (% of income per capita) 22.9 23.7 29.2 141.8 11.9 10.8 0.9 54.9 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.1 595.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 Dealing with licenSeS (smallstatEsrank) 5 8 1 27 28 13 25 10 Procedures (number) 14 9 11 14 22 14 20 7 time (days) 72 139 74 431 208 88 261 51 Cost (% of income per capita) 14.0 31.9 9.2 158.0 113.1 183.6 5.9 357.7 eMPlOYing wOrkerS (smallstatEsrank) 9 11 21 20 25 3 16 26 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 0 11 0 33 0 0 22 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 20 20 20 20 20 0 40 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 0 20 50 50 0 20 10 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 7 17 23 34 7 7 24 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 10 5 4 0 0 0 3 4 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 8 56 54 26 17 0 67 56 ReGisteRinG pRopeRty (small statEs rank) 22 4 13 21 29 14 26 17 Procedures (number) 6 5 6 4 no practice 4 8 2 time (days) 81 20 37 193 no practice 108 162 188 Cost (% of property value) 13.3 7.4 11.9 13.7 no practice 10.2 7.0 11.0 GettinG CReDit (small statEs rank) 13 9 6 18 30 25 3 18 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 6 7 4 2 3 5 4 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 Public registry coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Private bureau coverage index (% of adults) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 34.4 0.0 pRoteCtinG inVestoRs (small statEs rank) 4 4 4 32 22 20 3 16 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 4 4 2 3 3 4 5 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 8 8 0 4 3 9 6 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 7 7 5 5 8 7 5 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 6.3 6.3 2.3 4.0 4.7 6.7 5.3 pAyinG tAxes (small statEs rank) 24 9 16 6 18 7 11 5 Payments (number) 24 32 36 17 15 23 40 31 time (hours per year) 172 71 76 199 640 164 114 120 Profit tax (%) 32.7 27.8 37.6 27.9 27.8 23.8 21.6 0.0 labor tax and contributions (%) 11.3 5.6 3.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 5.8 4.5 Other taxes (%) 8.6 3.5 3.4 0.0 0.6 1.2 5.8 3.9 total tax rate (% of profit) 52.6 36.9 45.0 27.9 28.3 25.0 33.1 8.4 tRADinG ACRoss BoRDeRs (small statEs rank) 3 19 12 18 13 5 7 31 Documents to export (number) 6 5 6 8 6 7 5 7 time to export (days) 15 18 15 25 25 19 14 26 Cost to export (us$ per container) 750 1,375 1,770 905 990 545 693 1,815 Documents to import (number) 6 8 6 7 7 6 7 9 time to import (days) 17 21 16 25 26 25 26 30 Cost to import (us$ per container) 756 1,420 1,769 815 995 620 1,100 2,225 enFoRCinG A ContRACt (small statEs rank) 20 25 18 31 32 3 29 6 Procedures (number) 47 47 45 44 51 37 42 30 time (days) 578 635 394 1,715 1,800 350 1,340 430 Cost (% of debt) 20.5 37.3 30.3 37.1 163.2 30.5 33.5 74.7 ClosinG A Business (small statEs rank) 21 4 21 18 21 9 21 5 time (years) no practice 2.0 no practice 5.0 no practice 2.7 no practice 2.6 Cost (% of estate) no practice 9 no practice 30 no practice 22 no practice 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0.0 41.8 0.0 7.4 0.0 25.3 0.0 39.3 CountRy taBles 35 COUNTRY PROFILE ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 27 26 19 Antigua 41 and 41 55 58 Barbuda 75 74 108 135 Worst (178) Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders antigua anD barbuDa Ease of doing business (rank) 41 (sIDs 5) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 11,210 High income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 27 (sIDs 7) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 7 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 21 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 11.8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 26 (sIDs 11) paying taxes (rank) 108 (sIDs 27) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 45 time (days) 157 time (hours per year) 184 Cost (% of income per capita) 26.3 Profit tax (%) 31.2 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 9.5 employing workers (rank) 41 (sIDs 17) Other taxes (% of profit) 6.2 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 46.8 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 55 (sIDs 10) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 10 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 9 time to export (days) 19 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 52 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,107 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 75 (sIDs 9) time to import (days) 19 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,174 time (days) 26 Cost (% of property value) 13.0 enforcing contracts (rank) 74 (sIDs 10) Procedures (number) 45 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 351 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 22.7 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 58 (sIDs 7) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 3 Cost (% of estate) 7 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 35.7 36 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE BELIZE Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 3 10 15 28 24 20 25 30 47 35 40 45 Belize 59 50 55 60 65 84 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 116 113 107 116 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing 180 Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders Belize 59 beliZe 116 3 28 113 84 107Ease 47 of doing business (rank) 116 170 24 59 (sIDs 8) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 3,650 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.3 starting a business (rank) 116 (sIDs 25) protecting investors (rank) 107 (sIDs 21) Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 3 time (days) 44 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of income per capita) 53.1 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 6 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 3 (sIDs2) paying taxes (rank) 47 (sIDs 13) Procedures (number) 11 Payments (number per year) 41 time (days) 66 time (hours per year) 147 Cost (% of income per capita) 18.5 Profit tax (%) 21.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 7.0 employing workers (rank) 28 (sIDs 12) Other taxes (% of profit) 2.2 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 total tax rate (% of profit) 30.8 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 116 (sIDs 28) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 14 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 4 time to export (days) 23 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 24 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,800 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 113 (sIDs 18) time to import (days) 26 Procedures (number) 8 Cost to import (us$ per container) 2,130 time (days) 60 Cost (% of property value) 4.7 enforcing contracts (rank) 170 (sIDs 30) Procedures (number) 51 Getting credit (rank) 84 (sIDs6) time (days) 892 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 7 Cost (% of claim) 27.5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 24 (sIDs 3) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 1 Cost (% of estate) 23 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 63.5 CountRy taBles 37 COUNTRY PROFILE CAPE VERDE Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 51 40 45 56 50 68 55 60 79 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 Cape Verde 132 127 122 117 125 130 135 143 140 145 150 156 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders Cape Verde caPeVerDe 132 156 79 143 127 68Ease 122 of doing business (rank) 117 51 56 132 (sIDs 26) 178 sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 2,130 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.5 starting a business (rank) 156 (sIDs 29) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 12 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 1 time (days) 52 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of income per capita) 40.1 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 6 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 53.4 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 79 (sIDs 26) paying taxes (rank) 117 (sIDs 29) Procedures (number) 18 Payments (number per year) 57 time (days) 120 time (hours per year) 100 Cost (% of income per capita) 718.3 Profit tax (%) 22.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 18.5 employing workers (rank) 143 (sIDs 29) Other taxes (% of profit) 13.5 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 33 total tax rate (% of profit) 54 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 40 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 60 trading across borders (rank) 51 (sIDs 8) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 44 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 17 time to export (days) 21 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 91 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,024 Documents to import (number) 5 Registering property (rank) 127 (sIDs 19) time to import (days) 21 Procedures (number) 6 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,024 time (days) 83 Cost (% of property value) 7.8 enforcing contracts (rank) 56 (sIDs 2) Procedures (number) 37 Getting credit (rank) 68 (sIDs 5) time (days) 465 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 24.1 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 3 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 20.3 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 38 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE COMOROS Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 46 35 40 56 45 50 55 60 65 84 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 119 105 110 115 122 120 125 130 135 Comoros 140 145 147 145 152 150 155 158 158 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders cOMOrOS Ease of doing business (rank) 147 (sIDs 28) sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 660 low income Population (millions) 0.6 starting a business (rank) 145 (sIDs 28) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 11 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 6 time (days) 23 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 1 Cost (% of income per capita) 188.4 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 280.3 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 56 (sIDs 20) paying taxes (rank) 46 (sIDs 12) Procedures (number) 18 Payments (number per year) 20 time (days) 164 time (hours per year) 100 Cost (% of income per capita) 77.8 Profit tax (%) 27.2 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 0.0 employing workers (rank) 158 (sIDs 30) Other taxes (% of profit) 21.6 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 39 total tax rate (% of profit) 48.8 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 60 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 40 trading across borders (rank) 119 (sIDs 29) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 46 Documents to export (number) 10 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 0 time to export (days) 30 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 100 Cost to export (us$ per container) 971 Documents to import (number) 10 Registering property (rank) 84 (sIDs 12) time to import (days) 21 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 974 time (days) 24 Cost (% of property value) 20.8 enforcing contracts (rank) 152 (sIDs 24) Procedures (number) 43 Getting credit (rank) 158 (sIDs 25) time (days) 506 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 89.4 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 CountRy taBles 39 COUNTRY PROFILE DOMINICA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 23 19 10 15 20 25 30 47 35 54 40 45 64 50 55 60 65 Dominica 70 77 83 80 75 80 85 90 95 97 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 164 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders DOMinica Ease of doing business (rank) 77 (sIDs 17) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 3,960 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 23 (sIDs5) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 5 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 19 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 27.1 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 47 (sIDs 17) paying taxes (rank) 64 (sIDs 19) Procedures (number) 12 Payments (number per year) 38 time (days) 219 time (hours per year) 147 Cost (% of income per capita) 74.4 Profit tax (%) 26.1 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 7.9 employing workers (rank) 54 (sIDs 22) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.1 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 37.1 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 80 (sIDs 14) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 7 time to export (days) 16 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 58 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,197 Documents to import (number) 8 Registering property (rank) 83 (sIDs 11) time to import (days) 18 Procedures (number) 4 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,107 time (days) 40 Cost (% of property value) 13.5 enforcing contracts (rank) 164 (sIDs 28) Procedures (number) 47 Getting credit (rank) 97 (sIDs9) time (days) 681 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 6 Cost (% of claim) 36 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 40 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 36 20 25 35 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 74 65 82 70 75 80 85 Dominican 84 90 95 Republic 99 100 106 106 105 122 110 115 120 125 130 139 142 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders DOMinican rePublic Ease of doing business (rank) 99 (sIDs 23) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 2,850 lower middle income Population (millions) 9.6 starting a business (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 84 (sIDs 20) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 22 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 31.1 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 74 (sIDs 24) paying taxes (rank) neGAtiVe inReFoRM 139 (sIDs 30) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 17 Payments (number per year) 74 time (days) 214 time (hours per year) 286 Cost (% of income per capita) 116.1 Profit tax (%) 28.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 9.5 employing workers (rank) 106 (sIDs 28) Other taxes (% of profit) 2.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 56 total tax rate (% of profit) 40.2 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 40 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 35 (sIDs 4) 2006/07 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 32 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 14 time to export (days) 12 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 88 Cost to export (us$ per container) 815 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 106 (sIDs 14) time to import (days) 13 2006/07 Procedures (number) 7 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,015 time (days) 60 Cost (% of property value) 5.1 enforcing contracts (rank) 82 (sIDs 13) Procedures (number) 34 Getting credit (rank) 36 (sIDs2) time (days) 460 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 40.9 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 6 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 13.3 Closing a business (rank) 142 (sIDs 17) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 35.4 time (years) 3.5 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 8.4 CountRy taBles 41 COUNTRY PROFILE FIJI Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 16 5 10 15 20 25 Fiji 36 28 33 30 35 40 45 48 52 62 50 55 60 69 65 70 77 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 111 114 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders FiJi Ease of doing business (rank) 36 (sIDs 4) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 3,300 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.9 starting a business (rank) 69 (sIDs 16) protecting investors (rank) 33 (sIDs 11) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 3 time (days) 46 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 25.3 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6 Dealing with licenses (rank) 28 (sIDs 12) paying taxes (rank) 52 (sIDs 14) Procedures (number) 16 Payments (number per year) 33 time (days) 114 time (hours per year) 140 Cost (% of income per capita) 40.8 Profit tax (%) 28.2 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 10.2 employing workers (rank) 16 (sIDs 8) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.2 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 total tax rate (% of profit) 38.5 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 111 (sIDs 27) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 14 Documents to export (number) 13 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 9 time to export (days) 25 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 2 Cost to export (us$ per container) 573 Documents to import (number) 13 Registering property (rank) 77 (sIDs 10) time to import (days) 25 Procedures (number) 3 Cost to import (us$ per container) 570 time (days) 48 Cost (% of property value) 12 enforcing contracts (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 62 (sIDs 5) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 34 Getting credit (rank) 48 (sIDs 4) time (days) 397 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 38.9 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 4 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 114 (sIDs 12) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 41.2 time (years) 1.8 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 20.2 42 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE GRENADA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 15 5 19 10 15 20 25 30 32 35 46 40 52 45 50 55 60 Grenada 59 65 70 70 75 80 85 90 95 97 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 145 150 163 155 160 165 170 Worst (178) 178 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders grenaDa Ease of doing business (rank) 70 (sIDs 15) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 4,420 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 32 (sIDs 8) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 6 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 20 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 31.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 15 (sIDs 9) paying taxes (rank) 59 (sIDs 17) Procedures (number) 9 Payments (number per year) 30 time (days) 149 time (hours per year) 140 Cost (% of income per capita) 31 Profit tax (%) 27.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 5.6 employing workers (rank) 46 (sIDs 18) Other taxes (% of profit) 12.1 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 44 total tax rate (% of profit) 45.3 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 52 (sIDs 9) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 21 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 5 time to export (days) 19 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 29 Cost to export (us$ per container) 820 Documents to import (number) 5 Registering property (rank) 145 (sIDs 23) time to import (days) 23 Procedures (number) 8 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,178 time (days) 77 Cost (% of property value) 7.4 enforcing contracts (rank) 163 (sIDs 27) Procedures (number) 47 Getting credit (rank) 97 (sIDs 9) time (days) 723 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 6 Cost (% of claim) 32.6 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 CountRy taBles 43 COUNTRY PROFILE GUINEA BISSAU Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 101 90 109 95 100 105 110 112 115 120 Guinea- 122 137 125 130 Bissau 135 135 140 145 150 155 176 174 164 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing178 a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders guinea-biSSau Ease of doing business (rank) 176 (sIDs 32) sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 190 low income Population (millions) 1.6 starting a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 32) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 17 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 6 time (days) 233 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 1 Cost (% of income per capita) 255.5 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 1,006.6 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 101 (sIDs 29) paying taxes (rank) 112 (sIDs 28) Procedures (number) 15 Payments (number per year) 46 time (days) 167 time (hours per year) 208 Cost (% of income per capita) 2,607 Profit tax (%) 14.9 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 24.8 employing workers (rank) 174 (sIDs 31) Other taxes (% of profit) 6.1 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 67 total tax rate (% of profit) 45.9 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 60 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 70 trading across borders (rank) 109 (sIDs 25) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 66 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 22 time to export (days) 27 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 87 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,445 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 164 (sIDs 28) time to import (days) 26 2006/07 Procedures (number) 9 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,749 time (days) 211 Cost (% of property value) 5.4 enforcing contracts (rank) 137 (sIDs 21) Procedures (number) 41 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 1,140 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 25 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 1 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.9 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 44 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE GUYANA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 53 40 45 50 69 64 55 73 60 65 71 70 75 80 86 85 90 Guyana 95 100 104 100 101 105 110 123 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 158 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting 180 Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders guYana Ease of doing business (rank) 104 (sIDs 24) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 1,130 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.8 starting a business (rank) 86 (sIDs 23) protecting investors (rank) 64 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 44 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of income per capita) 87.2 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 6 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 69 (sIDs 22) paying taxes (rank) 100 (sIDs 26) Procedures (number) 12 Payments (number per year) 34 time (days) 222 time (hours per year) 288 Cost (% of income per capita) 313.9 Profit tax (%) 26.9 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 8.8 employing workers (rank) 71 (sIDs 24) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.3 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 33 total tax rate (% of profit) 39 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 101 (sIDs 23) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 24 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 8 time to export (days) 30 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 56 Cost to export (us$ per container) 850 Documents to import (number) 8 Registering property (rank) 53 (sIDs 5) time to import (days) 35 Procedures (number) 6 Cost to import (us$ per container) 856 time (days) 34 Cost (% of property value) 4.5 enforcing contracts (rank) 73 (sIDs 9) Procedures (number) 36 Getting credit (rank) 158 (sIDs 25) time (days) 581 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 25.2 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 123 (sIDs 15) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 3 Cost (% of estate) 29 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 17.4 CountRy taBles 45 COUNTRY PROFILE HAITI Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 35 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 96 95 85 90 95 100 115 105 110 115 120 126 125 128 130 135 Haiti 148 140 145 150 158 153 148 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading 180 Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders haiti Ease of doing business (rank) 148 (sIDs 29) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 480 low income Population (millions) 8.6 starting a business (rank) 170 (sIDs 31) protecting investors (rank) 158 (sIDs 29) Procedures (number) 12 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 2 time (days) 202 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of income per capita) 133.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 4 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 32.2 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 126 (sIDs 32) paying taxes (rank) 96 (sIDs 25) Procedures (number) 11 Payments (number per year) 53 time (days) 1,179 time (hours per year) 160 Cost (% of income per capita) 817.8 Profit tax (%) 23.3 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 12.4 employing workers (rank) 35 (sIDs 15) Other taxes (% of profit) 4.3 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 total tax rate (% of profit) 40 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 40 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 153 (sIDs 32) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 21 Documents to export (number) 8 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 11 time to export (days) 52 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 17 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,650 Documents to import (number) 10 Registering property (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 128 (sIDs 20) time to import (days) 53 2006/07 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,860 time (days) 405 Cost (% of property value) 6.5 enforcing contracts (rank) 95 (sIDs 15) Procedures (number) 35 Getting credit (rank) 115 (sIDs 13) time (days) 508 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 42.6 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 2 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.7 Closing a business (rank) 148 (sIDs 19) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 5.7 Cost (% of estate) 30 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 3.1 46 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE JAMAICA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 11 1 5 10 15 33 22 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Jamaica 55 63 64 60 65 70 74 75 92 80 85 90 108 95 103 100 105 110 115 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying 180 Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders JaMaica Ease of doing business (rank) 63 (sIDs 12) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 3,480 lower middle income Population (millions) 2.7 starting a business (rank) 11 (sIDs3) protecting investors (rank) 64 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 6 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 8 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 8.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 4 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 74 (sIDs 23) paying taxes (rank) 170 (sIDs 32) Procedures (number) 10 Payments (number per year) 72 time (days) 236 time (hours per year) 414 Cost (% of income per capita) 438.4 Profit tax (%) 28.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 13.0 employing workers (rank) 33 (sIDs 14) Other taxes (% of profit) 9.7 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 51.3 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 92 (sIDs 21) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 4 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 12 time to export (days) 21 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 61 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,750 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 108 (sIDs 16) time to import (days) 22 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,350 time (days) 54 Cost (% of property value) 13.5 enforcing contracts (rank) 103 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 34 Getting credit (rank) 115 (sIDs 13) time (days) 565 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 45.6 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 22 (sIDs 2) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 1.1 Cost (% of estate) 18 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 64.3 CountRy taBles 47 COUNTRY PROFILE KIRIBATI Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 10 5 25 10 15 20 25 33 30 35 40 45 60 50 55 60 Kiribati 73 65 71 65 70 75 80 86 85 90 97 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 158 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders kiribati Ease of doing business (rank) 73 (sIDs 16) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 1,230 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 86 (sIDs 22) protecting investors (rank) 33 (sIDs 11) Procedures (number) 6 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 6 time (days) 21 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of income per capita) 56.6 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 30.6 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6 Dealing with licenses (rank) 65 (sIDs 21) paying taxes (rank) 10 (sIDs 3) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 7 time (days) 160 time (hours per year) 120 Cost (% of income per capita) 629.3 Profit tax (%) 23.4 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 8.5 employing workers (rank) 25 (sIDs 10) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 31.8 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 50 trading across borders (rank) 97 (sIDs 22) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 8 time to export (days) 21 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 4 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,550 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) 60 (sIDs 7) time to import (days) 21 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,550 time (days) 513 Cost (% of property value) 0.1 enforcing contracts (rank) 71 (sIDs 8) Procedures (number) 32 Getting credit (rank) 158 (sIDs 25) time (days) 660 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 25.8 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 48 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE MALDIVES Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG MALDIVES BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 7 1 1 5 8 10 15 20 25 34 30 35 40 45 Maldives 50 55 60 64 60 65 70 75 94 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 110 120 115 120 125 130 135 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering 180 Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders MalDiVeS Ease of doing business (rank) 60 (sIDs 9) south asia GnI per capita (us$) 2,680 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.3 starting a business (rank) 34 (sIDs 10) protecting investors (rank) 64 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 5 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 0 time (days) 9 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 13.4 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 5.8 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 8 (sIDs6) paying taxes (rank) 1 (sIDs 1) Procedures (number) 9 Payments (number per year) 1 time (days) 118 time (hours per year) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 39.9 Profit tax (%) 0.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 0.0 employing workers (rank) 7 (sIDs4) Other taxes (% of profit) 9.1 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 9.1 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 110 (sIDs 26) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 0 Documents to export (number) 8 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 0 time to export (days) 21 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 9 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,200 Documents to import (number) 9 Registering property (rank) 178 (sIDs 30) time to import (days) 20 Procedures (number) nO PraCtICE Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,200 time (days) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of property value) nO PraCtICE enforcing contracts (rank) 94 (sIDs 14) Procedures (number) 41 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 665 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 16.5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 120 (sIDs 13) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 6.7 Cost (% of estate) 4 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 18.2 CountRy taBles 49 COUNTRY PROFILE MARSHALL ISLANDS Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 4 1 5 10 15 15 20 25 30 46 35 40 45 60 50 55 60 65 70 75 Marshall 74 80 85 Islands 89 90 95 100 105 110 122 115 120 125 130 135 140 147 145 150 155 160 178 165 Worst (178) 170 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting 180 Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders MarShall iSlanDS Ease of doing business (rank) 89 (sIDs 21) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 3,000 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 15 (sIDs 4) protecting investors (rank) 147 (sIDs 28) Procedures (number) 5 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 2 time (days) 17 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 17.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 3.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 4 (sIDs 3) paying taxes (rank) 74 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 10 Payments (number per year) 21 time (days) 55 time (hours per year) 128 Cost (% of income per capita) 36.8 Profit tax (%) 0.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 11.8 employing workers (rank) 1 (sIDs 1) Other taxes (% of profit) 53.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 64.9 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 46 (sIDs 6) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 0 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 11 time to export (days) 21 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 0 Cost to export (us$ per container) 765 Documents to import (number) 5 Registering property (rank) 178 (sIDs 31) time to import (days) 33 Procedures (number) nO PraCtICE Cost to import (us$ per container) 765 time (days) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of property value) nO PraCtICE enforcing contracts (rank) 60 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 36 Getting credit (rank) 170 (sIDs 30) time (days) 476 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 2 Cost (% of claim) 27.4 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 122 (sIDs 14) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 2 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 17.9 50 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE MAURITIUS Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 Mauritius 8 17 15 20 27 33 11 11 25 30 35 40 45 50 61 55 66 60 65 70 75 78 80 85 90 97 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 153 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering 180 Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders MauritiuS Ease of doing business (rank) 27 (sIDs 2) sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 5,450 Upper middle income Population (millions) 1.3 starting a business (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 8 (sIDs1) protecting investors (rank) 11 (sIDs 2) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 6 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 6 time (days) 7 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 5.3 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 9 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 7.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) positiVe 33 (sIDs 14) paying taxes (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 11 (sIDs 4) 2006/07 Procedures (number) inReFoRM 2006/07 18 Payments (number per year) 7 time (days) 107 time (hours per year) 161 Cost (% of income per capita) 43.3 Profit tax (%) 10.8 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 3.6 employing workers (rank) 61 (sIDs 23) Other taxes (% of profit) 7.3 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 21.7 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 50 trading across borders (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 17 (sIDs 2) 2006/07 rigidity of employment index (0-100) 23 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 time to export (days) 17 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 35 Cost to export (us$ per container) 728 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 153 (sIDs 25) time to import (days) 16 2006/07 Procedures (number) 6 Cost to import (us$ per container) 673 time (days) 210 Cost (% of property value) 10.8 enforcing contracts (rank) 78 (sIDs 11) Procedures (number) 37 Getting credit (rank) 97 (sIDs9) time (days) 750 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 17.4 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 1 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 38.6 Closing a business (rank) positiVe 66 (sIDs 8) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) inReFoRM 2006/07 1.7 Cost (% of estate) 15 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 34.3 CountRy taBles 51 COUNTRY PROFILE MICRONESIA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 9 12 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 46 45 50 55 70 60 65 70 84 85 75 80 85 90 95 100 Micronesia 105 112 110 115 120 139 125 130 135 149 140 145 150 155 165 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting 180 Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders MicrOneSia Ease of doing business (rank) 112 (sIDs 25) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 2,380 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 46 (sIDs 13) protecting investors (rank) 165 (sIDs 30) Procedures (number) 7 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 0 time (days) 16 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 137 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 2.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 9 (sIDs 7) paying taxes (rank) 70 (sIDs 20) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 21 time (days) 73 time (hours per year) 128 Cost (% of income per capita) 19.7 Profit tax (%) 0.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 6.8 employing workers (rank) 12 (sIDs 6) Other taxes (% of profit) 52.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 total tax rate (% of profit) 58.7 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 85 (sIDs 17) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 7 Documents to export (number) 3 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 time to export (days) 30 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 0 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,145 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 178 (sIDs 32) time to import (days) 30 Procedures (number) nO PraCtICE Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,145 time (days) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of property value) nO PraCtICE enforcing contracts (rank) 139 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 34 Getting credit (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 84 (sIDs 6) time (days) 965 2006/07 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 7 Cost (% of claim) 66 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 149 (sIDs 20) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 5.3 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 3.1 52 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE PALAU Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 9 1 5 14 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 47 45 50 56 55 55 73 60 65 Palau 70 75 82 80 85 90 95 100 105 121 110 115 120 125 130 135 142 140 145 150 155 165 160 165 Worst (178) 170 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting 180 Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders Palau Ease of doing business (rank) 82 (sIDs 19) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 7,990 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0 starting a business (rank) 56 (sIDs 15) protecting investors (rank) 165 (sIDs 30) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 0 time (days) 28 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 4.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 12.5 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 2.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 47 (sIDs 17) paying taxes (rank) 73 (sIDs 21) Procedures (number) 25 Payments (number per year) 19 time (days) 118 time (hours per year) 128 Cost (% of income per capita) 6.1 Profit tax (%) 0.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 6.5 employing workers (rank) 9 (sIDs5) Other taxes (% of profit) 66.5 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 73 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 121 (sIDs 30) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 4 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 time to export (days) 29 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 0 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,160 Documents to import (number) 10 Registering property (rank) 14 (sIDs2) time to import (days) 35 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,110 time (days) 14 Cost (% of property value) 0.4 enforcing contracts (rank) 142 (sIDs 23) Procedures (number) 38 Getting credit (rank) 170 (sIDs 30) time (days) 885 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 2 Cost (% of claim) 35.3 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 55 (sIDs 6) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 1 Cost (% of estate) 23 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 38.2 CountRy taBles 53 COUNTRY PROFILE PAPUA NEW GUINEA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 31 33 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 64 55 60 65 70 Papua 76 79 82 75 80 New Guinea 84 85 97 90 95 100 105 110 118 115 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 162 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing 180 Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders PaPua new guinea Ease of doing business (rank) 84 (sIDs 20) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 770 low income Population (millions) 6 starting a business (rank) 76 (sIDs 18) protecting investors (rank) 33 (sIDs 11) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 56 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of income per capita) 26.4 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6 Dealing with licenses (rank) 118 (sIDs 31) paying taxes (rank) 79 (sIDs 23) Procedures (number) 24 Payments (number per year) 33 time (days) 217 time (hours per year) 206 Cost (% of income per capita) 106.3 Profit tax (%) 22.2 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 10.9 employing workers (rank) 31 (sIDs 13) Other taxes (% of profit) 8.6 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 41.7 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 82 (sIDs 15) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 10 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 10 time to export (days) 26 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 39 Cost to export (us$ per container) 584 Documents to import (number) 9 Registering property (rank) 64 (sIDs 8) time to import (days) 29 Procedures (number) 4 Cost to import (us$ per container) 642 time (days) 72 Cost (% of property value) 5.1 enforcing contracts (rank) 162 (sIDs 26) Procedures (number) 43 Getting credit (rank) 115 (sIDs 13) time (days) 591 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 110.3 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 97 (sIDs 10) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 3 Cost (% of estate) 23 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 23.9 54 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE SAMOA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 15 5 19 10 15 20 25 30 41 35 40 45 Samoa 61 58 53 50 55 60 65 80 70 75 80 85 90 95 104 100 108 105 110 115 120 129 125 130 135 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SaMOa Ease of doing business (rank) 61 (sIDs 10) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 2,270 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.2 starting a business (rank) 104 (sIDs 24) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 35 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 6 Cost (% of income per capita) 41.3 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 41 (sIDs 16) paying taxes (rank) 53 (sIDs 15) Procedures (number) 18 Payments (number per year) 37 time (days) 88 time (hours per year) 224 Cost (% of income per capita) 95.4 Profit tax (%) 12.8 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 7.0 employing workers (rank) 15 (sIDs7) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 19.8 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 108 (sIDs 24) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 10 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 time to export (days) 27 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 9 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,010 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) 58 (sIDs6) time to import (days) 31 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,375 time (days) 147 Cost (% of property value) 1.8 enforcing contracts (rank) 80 (sIDs 12) Procedures (number) 44 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 455 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 19.7 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 129 (sIDs 16) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 2.5 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 15.2 CountRy taBles 55 COUNTRY PROFILE SÃO TOMÉ AND PRINCIPE Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 91 80 85 90 95 100 113 115 105 110 115 São Tomé 122 115 120 125 and 126 130 135 Principe 140 146 145 150 155 163 153 160 165 Worst (178) 176 178 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SÃOtOMÉ anD PrinciPe Ease of doing business (rank) 163 (sIDs 30) sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 780 low income Population (millions) 0.2 starting a business (rank) 126 (sIDs 26) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) Procedures (number) 10 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 144 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 1 Cost (% of income per capita) 94.5 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 6 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 113 (sIDs 30) paying taxes (rank) 153 (sIDs 31) Procedures (number) 13 Payments (number per year) 41 time (days) 255 time (hours per year) 424 Cost (% of income per capita) 825.9 Profit tax (%) 36.9 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 6.8 employing workers (rank) 176 (sIDs 32) Other taxes (% of profit) 7.4 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 50 total tax rate (% of profit) 51 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 80 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 60 trading across borders (rank) 91 (sIDs 20) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 63 Documents to export (number) 8 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 6 time to export (days) 27 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 91 Cost to export (us$ per container) 690 Documents to import (number) 9 Registering property (rank) 146 (sIDs 24) time to import (days) 29 Procedures (number) 7 Cost to import (us$ per container) 577 time (days) 62 Cost (% of property value) 12.6 enforcing contracts (rank) 115 (sIDs 19) Procedures (number) 43 Getting credit (rank) 115 (sIDs 13) time (days) 405 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 34.8 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 56 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE SEYCHELLES Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 35 25 30 48 35 51 50 40 45 51 50 66 55 60 65 70 75 Seychelles 80 90 84 85 90 97 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 158 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SeYchelleS Ease of doing business (rank) 90 (sIDs 22) sub-saharan africa GnI per capita (us$) 8,650 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 48 (sIDs 14) protecting investors (rank) 51 (sIDs 14) Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 38 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 8.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 51 (sIDs 19) paying taxes (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 35 (sIDs 10) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 19 Payments (number per year) 16 time (days) 144 time (hours per year) 76 Cost (% of income per capita) 46.5 Profit tax (%) 22.4 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 25.4 employing workers (rank) 97 (sIDs 27) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.5 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 33 total tax rate (% of profit) 48.4 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 50 trading across borders (rank) 84 (sIDs 16) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 34 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 25 time to export (days) 17 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 39 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,839 Documents to import (number) 5 Registering property (rank) 50 (sIDs3) time to import (days) 19 Procedures (number) 4 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,839 time (days) 33 Cost (% of property value) 7 enforcing contracts (rank) 66 (sIDs 6) Procedures (number) 38 Getting credit (rank) 158 (sIDs 25) time (days) 720 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 14.3 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 CountRy taBles 57 COUNTRY PROFILE SINGAPORE Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 2 1 5 Singapore 1 9 5 1 2 2 4 10 13 7 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SingaPOre Ease of doing business (rank) 1 (sIDs1) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 29,320 High income Population (millions) 4.4 starting a business (rank) 9 (sIDs2) protecting investors (rank) 2 (sIDs1) Procedures (number) 5 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 10 time (days) 5 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 9 Cost (% of income per capita) 0.8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 9 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 9.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 5 (sIDs4) paying taxes (rank) 2 (sIDs2) Procedures (number) 11 Payments (number per year) 5 time (days) 102 time (hours per year) 49 Cost (% of income per capita) 22.9 Profit tax (%) 6.3 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 14.1 employing workers (rank) 1 (sIDs2) Other taxes (% of profit) 2.8 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 23.2 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 1 (sIDs1) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 0 Documents to export (number) 4 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 13 time to export (days) 5 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 4 Cost to export (us$ per container) 416 Documents to import (number) 4 Registering property (rank) 13 (sIDs1) time to import (days) 3 Procedures (number) 3 Cost to import (us$ per container) 367 time (days) 9 Cost (% of property value) 2.8 enforcing contracts (rank) 4 (sIDs1) Procedures (number) 22 Getting credit (rank) 7 (sIDs1) time (days) 120 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 9 Cost (% of claim) 17.8 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 4 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 2 (sIDs1) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 42.7 time (years) 0.8 Cost (% of estate) 1 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 91.3 58 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE SOLOMON ISLANDS Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 34 26 20 25 30 35 47 40 45 51 50 55 60 65 Solomon 79 74 70 75 Islands 85 80 85 90 101 95 100 104 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 135 140 145 150 155 162 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering 180 Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SOlOMOn iSlanDS Ease of doing business (rank) 79 (sIDs 18) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 680 low income Population (millions) 0.5 starting a business (rank) 85 (sIDs 21) protecting investors (rank) 51 (sIDs 14) Procedures (number) 7 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 3 time (days) 57 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 7 Cost (% of income per capita) 58.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 34 (sIDs 15) paying taxes (rank) 26 (sIDs 8) Procedures (number) 12 Payments (number per year) 33 time (days) 62 time (hours per year) 80 Cost (% of income per capita) 518 Profit tax (%) 21.2 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 8.5 employing workers (rank) 47 (sIDs 19) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 32.6 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 74 (sIDs 11) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 8 time to export (days) 24 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 44 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,056 Documents to import (number) 4 Registering property (rank) 162 (sIDs 27) time to import (days) 21 Procedures (number) 10 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,238 time (days) 297 Cost (% of property value) 4.9 enforcing contracts (rank) 104 (sIDs 17) Procedures (number) 37 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 455 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 78.9 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 101 (sIDs 11) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 1 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 23.3 CountRy taBles 59 COUNTRY PROFILE ST. KITTS AND NEVIS Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 7 18 19 10 22 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 St. Kitts 64 55 60 65 and Nevis 70 75 79 85 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 117 115 120 125 130 135 140 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders St. kittS anD neViS Ease of doing business (rank) 64 (sIDs 13) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 8,840 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.0 starting a business (rank) 79 (sIDs 19) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 46 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 22.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 7 (sIDs 5) paying taxes (rank) 85 (sIDs 24) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 24 time (days) 72 time (hours per year) 172 Cost (% of income per capita) 14 Profit tax (%) 32.7 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 11.3 employing workers (rank) 18 (sIDs 9) Other taxes (% of profit) 8.6 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 52.6 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 22 (sIDs 3) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 10 time to export (days) 15 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 8 Cost to export (us$ per container) 750 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 140 (sIDs 22) time to import (days) 17 Procedures (number) 6 Cost to import (us$ per container) 756 time (days) 81 Cost (% of property value) 13.3 enforcing contracts (rank) 117 (sIDs 20) Procedures (number) 47 Getting credit (rank) 115 (sIDs 13) time (days) 578 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 20.5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 60 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE ST. LUCIA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 13 1 19 5 10 27 15 20 St. Lucia 34 32 25 30 35 40 45 51 43 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 88 80 85 90 97 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 161 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing 180 Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders St. lucia Ease of doing business (rank) 34 (sIDs 3) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 5,110 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.2 starting a business (rank) 45 (sIDs 12) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 6 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 40 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 23.7 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 13 (sIDs8) paying taxes (rank) 32 (sIDs 9) Procedures (number) 9 Payments (number per year) 32 time (days) 139 time (hours per year) 71 Cost (% of income per capita) 31.9 Profit tax (%) 27.8 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 5.6 employing workers (rank) 27 (sIDs 11) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.5 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 36.9 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 88 (sIDs 19) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 7 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 5 time to export (days) 18 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 56 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,375 Documents to import (number) 8 Registering property (rank) 51 (sIDs4) time to import (days) 21 Procedures (number) 5 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,420 time (days) 20 Cost (% of property value) 7.4 enforcing contracts (rank) 161 (sIDs 25) Procedures (number) 47 Getting credit (rank) 97 (sIDs9) time (days) 635 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 6 Cost (% of claim) 37.3 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 43 (sIDs 4) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 2 Cost (% of estate) 9 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 41.8 CountRy taBles 61 COUNTRY PROFILE ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 1 19 5 10 15 20 25 30 32 35 40 St Vincent 52 58 45 50 and the 54 55 60 65 Grenadines 75 70 75 84 80 85 90 95 100 104 108 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders St.Vincent anDthe grenaDineS Ease of doing business (rank) 54 (sIDs 7) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 3,930 Upper middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 32 (sIDs 8) protecting investors (rank) 19 (sIDs 4) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 12 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 8 Cost (% of income per capita) 29.2 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 1 (sIDs 1) paying taxes (rank) 58 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 11 Payments (number per year) 36 time (days) 74 time (hours per year) 76 Cost (% of income per capita) 9.2 Profit tax (%) 37.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 3.9 employing workers (rank) 52 (sIDs 21) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.4 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 11 total tax rate (% of profit) 45 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 75 (sIDs 12) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 17 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 4 time to export (days) 15 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 54 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,770 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 104 (sIDs 13) time to import (days) 16 Procedures (number) 6 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,769 time (days) 37 Cost (% of property value) 11.9 enforcing contracts (rank) 108 (sIDs 18) Procedures (number) 45 Getting credit (rank) 84 (sIDs 6) time (days) 394 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 7 Cost (% of claim) 30.3 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 62 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE SURINAME Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 23 15 20 25 30 35 50 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 86 80 85 90 97 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 Suriname 142 136 135 135 145 140 145 150 155 163 160 165 Worst (178) 174 174 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders SurinaMe Ease of doing business (rank) 142 (sIDs 27) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 3,200 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.5 starting a business (rank) 163 (sIDs 30) protecting investors (rank) 174 (sIDs 32) Procedures (number) 13 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 2 time (days) 694 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 0 Cost (% of income per capita) 141.8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 1.1 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 2.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 97 (sIDs 27) paying taxes (rank) 23 (sIDs6) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 17 time (days) 431 time (hours per year) 199 Cost (% of income per capita) 158 Profit tax (%) 27.9 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 0.0 employing workers (rank) 50 (sIDs 20) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.0 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 27.9 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 50 trading across borders (rank) 86 (sIDs 18) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 23 Documents to export (number) 8 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 0 time to export (days) 25 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 26 Cost to export (us$ per container) 905 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) 136 (sIDs 21) time to import (days) 25 Procedures (number) 4 Cost to import (us$ per container) 815 time (days) 193 Cost (% of property value) 13.7 enforcing contracts (rank) 174 (sIDs 31) Procedures (number) 44 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 1,715 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 37.1 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 145 (sIDs 18) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 5 Cost (% of estate) 30 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 7.4 CountRy taBles 63 COUNTRY PROFILE TIMOR LESTE Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 62 50 55 60 73 65 78 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 100 105 110 115 122 120 125 130 Timor-Leste 135 140 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 168 178 170 178 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders tiMOr-leSte Ease of doing business (rank) 168 (sIDs 31) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 840 low income Population (millions) 1 starting a business (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 140 (sIDs 27) protecting investors (rank) 122 (sIDs 22) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 3 time (days) 82 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of income per capita) 11.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 595.2 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4 Dealing with licenses (rank) 100 (sIDs 28) paying taxes (rank) 62 (sIDs 18) Procedures (number) 22 Payments (number per year) 15 time (days) 208 time (hours per year) 640 Cost (% of income per capita) 113.1 Profit tax (%) 27.8 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 0.0 employing workers (rank) 73 (sIDs 25) Other taxes (% of profit) 0.6 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 33 total tax rate (% of profit) 28.3 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 50 trading across borders (rank) 78 (sIDs 13) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 34 Documents to export (number) 6 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 0 time to export (days) 25 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 17 Cost to export (us$ per container) 990 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) 178 (sIDs 29) time to import (days) 26 Procedures (number) nO PraCtICE Cost to import (us$ per container) 995 time (days) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of property value) nO PraCtICE enforcing contracts (rank) 178 (sIDs 32) Procedures (number) 51 Getting credit (rank) 170 (sIDs 30) time (days) 1,800 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 2 Cost (% of claim) 163.2 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 64 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE TONGA Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 24 4 24 10 15 20 25 30 30 35 Tonga 44 40 45 47 58 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 106 98 93 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 158 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting 180 Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders tOnga Ease of doing business (rank) 47 (sIDs 6) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 2,170 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.1 starting a business (rank) 24 (sIDs6) protecting investors (rank) 98 (sIDs 20) Procedures (number) 4 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 3 time (days) 32 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of income per capita) 10.8 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 8 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 4.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 30 (sIDs 13) paying taxes (rank) 24 (sIDs 7) Procedures (number) 14 Payments (number per year) 23 time (days) 88 time (hours per year) 164 Cost (% of income per capita) 183.6 Profit tax (%) 23.8 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 0.0 employing workers (rank) 4 (sIDs3) Other taxes (% of profit) 1.2 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 25 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 20 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 0 trading across borders (rank) 44 (sIDs 5) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 7 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 0 time to export (days) 19 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 0 Cost to export (us$ per container) 545 Documents to import (number) 6 Registering property (rank) 106 (sIDs 14) time to import (days) 25 Procedures (number) 4 Cost to import (us$ per container) 620 time (days) 108 Cost (% of property value) 10.2 enforcing contracts (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 58 (sIDs 3) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 37 Getting credit (rank) 158 (sIDs 25) time (days) 350 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 Cost (% of claim) 30.5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 93 (sIDs 9) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 2.7 Cost (% of estate) 22 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 25.3 CountRy taBles 65 COUNTRY PROFILE TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 15 5 10 15 20 25 40 38 45 30 35 40 48 49 45 50 55 Trinidad 60 65 and Togago 67 70 79 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 157 168 155 160 165 Worst (178) 178 170 175 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a 180 doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders triniDaD anDtObagO Ease of doing business (rank) 67 (sIDs 14) latin america & Caribbean GnI per capita (us$) 13,340 Upper middle income Population (millions) 1.3 starting a business (rank) 40 (sIDs 11) protecting investors (rank) 15 (sIDs3) Procedures (number) 9 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 time (days) 43 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 9 Cost (% of income per capita) 0.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 7 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 6.7 Dealing with licenses (rank) 79 (sIDs 25) paying taxes (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 45 (sIDs 11) 2006/07 Procedures (number) 20 Payments (number per year) 40 time (days) 261 time (hours per year) 114 Cost (% of income per capita) 5.9 Profit tax (%) 21.6 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 5.8 employing workers (rank) 38 (sIDs 16) Other taxes (% of profit) 5.8 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 0 total tax rate (% of profit) 33.1 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 0 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 20 trading across borders (rank) 49 (sIDs7) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 7 Documents to export (number) 5 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 3 time to export (days) 14 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 67 Cost to export (us$ per container) 693 Documents to import (number) 7 Registering property (rank) 157 (sIDs 26) time to import (days) 26 Procedures (number) 8 Cost to import (us$ per container) 1,100 time (days) 162 Cost (% of property value) 7 enforcing contracts (rank) 168 (sIDs 29) Procedures (number) 42 Getting credit (rank) positiVe inReFoRM 48 (sIDs 3) time (days) 1,340 2006/07 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 5 Cost (% of claim) 33.5 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 4 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 178 (sIDs 21) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 34.4 time (years) nO PraCtICE Cost (% of estate) nO PraCtICE recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 0 66 Doing Business in small islanD Developing states 2008 COUNTRY PROFILE VANUATU Ranking ST. VINCENT & UNITED NEW UNITED NEW HONG KONG BEST (1) SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA THE GRENADINES STATES ZEALAND KINGDOM ZEALAND MALDIVES SINGAPORE CHINA JAPAN 1 5 24 18 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Vanuatu 62 49 55 60 65 73 77 64 66 70 75 80 85 90 95 111 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 135 142 140 145 150 155 160 165 Worst (178) 170 175 180 Ease of Starting a Dealing with Employing Registering Getting Protecting Paying Trading Enforcing Closing a doing business licenses workers property credit investors taxes across contracts business business borders Vanuatu Ease of doing business (rank) 62 (sIDs 11) East asia & Pacific GnI per capita (us$) 1,710 lower middle income Population (millions) 0.2 starting a business (rank) 73 (sIDs 17) protecting investors (rank) 64 (sIDs 16) Procedures (number) 8 Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 5 time (days) 39 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 6 Cost (% of income per capita) 54.9 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 5 minimum capital (% of income per capita) 0.0 strength of investor protection index (0-10) 5.3 Dealing with licenses (rank) 24 (sIDs 10) paying taxes (rank) 18 (sIDs 5) Procedures (number) 7 Payments (number per year) 31 time (days) 51 time (hours per year) 120 Cost (% of income per capita) 357.7 Profit tax (%) 0.0 labor tax and contributions (% of profit) 4.5 employing workers (rank) 77 (sIDs 26) Other taxes (% of profit) 3.9 Difficulty of hiring index (0-100) 22 total tax rate (% of profit) 8.4 rigidity of hours index (0-100) 40 Difficulty of firing index (0-100) 10 trading across borders (rank) 142 (sIDs 31) rigidity of employment index (0-100) 24 Documents to export (number) 7 nonwage labor cost (% of salary) 4 time to export (days) 26 Firing cost (weeks of salary) 56 Cost to export (us$ per container) 1,815 Documents to import (number) 9 Registering property (rank) neGAtiVe inReFoRM 111 (sIDs 17) time to import (days) 30 2006/07 Procedures (number) 2 Cost to import (us$ per container) 2,225 time (days) 188 Cost (% of property value) 11 enforcing contracts (rank) 66 (sIDs 6) Procedures (number) 30 Getting credit (rank) 135 (sIDs 18) time (days) 430 strength of legal rights index (0-10) 4 Cost (% of claim) 74.7 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 0 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 0.0 Closing a business (rank) 49 (sIDs 5) Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 time (years) 2.6 Cost (% of estate) 38 recovery rate (cents on the dollar) 39.3 67 Acknowledgements Contact details for local partners are available on the Doing Business website at http://www.doingbusiness.org Doing Business in Small Island Developing States 2008 ing investors, enforcing contracts and not paying bribes was prepared by a team led by Simeon Djankov and projects are conducted in partnership with the Lex Caralee McLiesh under the general direction of Michael Mundi association, led by Carl Anduri and Sam Nolen. Klein. Svetlana Bagaudinova, Frederic Bustelo, Allen The IFC gender team, led by Amanda Ellis, advised on Dennis, Penelope Fidas, Elena Gasol Ramos, Carolin analysis of women and business regulations. Geginat, Sabine Hertveldt, Melissa Johns, Julien Levis, Alison Strong edited the manuscript. Gerry Quinn Janet Morris, Rita Ramalho, Sylvia Solf and Justin Yap designed the report and the graphs. Alexandra Quinn led sets of indicators. The team also included Mema assisted in the report layout. The online service of the Beye, Doina Cebotari, César Chaparro Yedro, Hania Doing Business database is managed by Graeme Littler, Dawood, Marie Delion, Jacqueline den Otter, Cemile Felipe Escudero and Ramin Aliyev under the direction Hacibeyoglu, Jamal Ibrahim Haidar, Benjamin Horne, of Suzanne Smith. Dahlia Khalifa, Adam Larson, Jean Michel Lobet, Oliver We are grateful for valuable comments and review Lorenz, Dana Omran, Camille Ramos, Ivana Rossi, Ra- provided by the World Bank Group's country and chel Shahidsaless, Umar Shavurov, Tea Trumbic, Caro- network teams as well as World Bank Group Executive line van Coppenolle, Adriana Vicentini, Maria-Eleni Directors. Vlachakou and Bryan Welsh. Karim Belayachi, Maya The report was made possible by the generous Choueiri, Alejandro Espinosa-Wang, Kjartan Fjeldsted, contribution of more than 5,000 lawyers, accountants, Palarp Jumpasut, Jana Matesova, Caroline Otonglo, judges, businesspeople and public officials in 178 econo- Djasurbek Teshaev and Lior Ziv assisted in the months mies. Quotations in this report are from Doing Business prior to publication. local partners unless otherwise indicated. The names of Oliver Hart, Rafael La Porta and Andrei Shleifer those wishing to be acknowledged individually are listed provided academic advice on the project. The paying below. Contact details are posted on the Doing Business taxes project was conducted in partnership with Price- website at http://www.doingbusiness.org. waterhouseCoopers, led by Robert Morris. The protect- 68 Doing Business in sMALL isLAnD DeVeLoPing sTATes 2008 gloBAl ContriButors Youssouf Yahaya Claudia Taveras Jenny Seeto Impots de la Grande Headrick Rizik Alvarez & PricewaterhouseCoopers Allen & Overy LLP Comore Fernandez Narotam Solanki Baker & McKenzie Ali Mohamed Choybou Mary Fernández Rodríguez PricewaterhouseCoopers Lex Mundi, Association of Independent Law Firms Palais de la Justice Headrick Rizik Alvarez & Fernandez PricewaterhouseCoopers Aboubakar Abdou grenAdA Sarah de León PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal Services President de l'Ile Autonome de la Grande Headrick Rizik Alvarez & C/O Supreme Court Registry SDV International Logistics Comore Fernandez Dickon Mitchell The Adora Group Ltd (Freightnet) Haroussi Idrissa Wilfredo Senior Grant Josepth & Co., TOBOC Inc. Tribunal de premiere Headrick Rizik Alvarez & instance de Moroni Fernandez member of Lex Mundi regionAl ContriButors Mohamed Salipi Carlos Hernández Niel Noel Tribunal de premiere Instituto de Estudios del Henry Hudson - Phillips Abu-Ghazaleh Legal instance de Moroni Trabajo & Co. University of South Pacific Thaddus Charles dominiCA Philippe Lescuras Inland Revenue TransUnion International Panalpina Department Kathy Buffong Luis R. Pellerano Attorney General's Andrew DeBourg Pellerano & Herrera, Labour Department AntiguA And CApe Verde Chambers member of Lex Mundi BArBudA Mrs. Carrette Alejandro Fernandez de Cyrus Griffith José Manuel Pinto Monteiro Labour Department Kerry George Castro Eleanor R. Clark Advogados & C I S Enterprises Ltd. PricewaterhouseCoopers Trevor St. Bernard Clarke & Clarke Jurisconsultos Lewis & Renwick Linda Singletary Andrea Paniagua Carden Conliffe Clarke Eldetrudes Pires Neves C I S Enterprises Ltd. PricewaterhouseCoopers Claudia Francis Commodore & Associates Araújo, Neves, Santos PricewaterhouseCoopers Francine Royr Caroline Bono Vernon Edwards & Miranda, Advogados Associados De Freitas de Freitas & PricewaterhouseCoopers Yvonne Gellineau Freight Forwarding & Baron PricewaterhouseCoopers Deconsolidating Joao M. A. Mendes Juan Tejada Leah Shillingford PricewaterhouseCoopers David Sinclaire Ann Henry Auditec Dominica Amalgamated Sinclair Enterprises Ltd. Henry & Burnette Ricardo G. Pereira Workers Union Julio Pinedo PricewaterhouseCoopers Phinsley St. Louis Hesketh Williams BDO Capeaudit Caryl Paul St. Louis Service Ministry of Labor Ana Denise Lima Barber Dominica Coconut Ramon Ortega PricewaterhouseCoopers Roselyn Wilkinson Phillip Jr. Isaacs CWV & Advogados Products Ltd. Wilkinson, Wilkinson & OBM International, Carlos Veiga Alex Phillip Superintendencia de Wilkinson Antigua Ltd. CWV & Advogados House of Assembly Bancos Charles Walwyn Elsa Tavares Issa Trading Ltd. Wendy Sánchez guineA-BissAu PricewaterhouseCoopers CWV & Advogados TransUnion J. Gildon Richards Adelaida Mesa D'Almeida Neil Coates Vera Andrade J. Gildon Richards Ana Isabel Caceres Attorney-at-Law PricewaterhouseCoopers CWV & Advogados Chambers Troncoso y Caceres Miguel Mango Stacy Richards-Anjo Vasco Carvalho Oliveira Alick C. Lawrence Juan Manuel Caceres Audi - Conta Lda Richards & Co. Ramos Lawrence Alick C. Troncoso y Caceres Charles Ki-Zerbo Clare Roberts Engic Chambers Fiji BCEAO Roberts & Co. Ilíldio Cruz Laurina Vidal Gabinete de Advocacia Jaló Pires Lawrence Alick C. Ramesh Prasad Lal Belize Consultoria e Chambers Carpenters Shipping Ministerio da Justica Procuradoria Juridica Octavio Gomez Emil Arguelles Severin McKenzie Paul McDonnell Octávio Lopes Advogados - Arguelles & Co. Jorge Teixeira McKenzie Architectural & Cromptons Solicitors Construction Services Inc. Miranda Alliance Saidi M. Vaccaro Maria de Fatima Lopes Varela Delores Elliott Octávio Lopes Arguelles & Co. João Dono Richard Peterkin Databureau, Baycorp PricewaterhouseCoopers Advantage Octávio Lopes Advogados - Tania Moody Maria João de Novais Miranda Alliance Advogados - Miranda Barrow & Williams Litiana Morris Alliance Singoalla Blomqvist-Williams Howards Lawyers João Daniel Vaz Jr. Patricia Rodriguez TransVaz, Lda Armando J.F. Rodrigues Ruby Joseph Belize Companies and William Wylie Clarke PricewaterhouseCoopers Kirtiste Augustus Corporate Affairs Registry Howards Lawyers guyAnA Herminio Afonso Waterfront and Alied Fred Lumor Workers Union Fapna Vithal PricewaterhouseCoopers Cliffton Mortimer Llewelyn Fred Lumor & Co. Lateef & Lateef John Tito Lívio Santos Oliveira dominiCAn Attorney-at-Law Reynaldo F. Magana Ramos repuBliC John Apted Frontier International Munro Leys Notaries Mark Waldron Business Services Ltd. Comoros Raúl De Moya Public Attorney-at-Law Gian C. Gandhi Arquitectura & Nehla Basawaiya Planificación Roger Yearwood International Financial Said Ibrahim Mourad Munro Leys Notaries Britton, Hamilton & Services Commission Ancien Magistrat Pablo Gonzalez Tapia Public Adams C. Phillip Waight Ahamada Mahamoudou Biaggi & Messina Richard Naidu Josephine Whitehead Waight & Associates Avocat à la Cour Maria Portes Munro Leys Notaries Cameron & Shepherd Public Carlton Young Hassani Assoumani Castillo y Castillo Germene Stewart Young's Engineering C.V.P. - Biocom Xavier Marra Martínez Shelvin Singh Central Housing & Consultancy Ltd. Zainaba Mohamed Dhimes & Marra Parshotam & Co. Planning Authority Fonds d'Appui au Chirk Yam Raphael Trotman Développement Fabio Guzmán-Ariza PricewaterhouseCoopers Chapman & Trotman Communautaire Guzmán Ariza Eddielin Almonte Colin Murray Mohamed Abdallah Halifa Claudia Roca PricewaterhouseCoopers Coastal Construction Groupe Hassanati Soilihi - Headrick Rizik Alvarez & Services Groupe Hasoil Fernandez AcknowLeDgMenTs 69 Desmond Correia Adele Decastro Corrine N. Henry Sriyani Perera Nand-MDI Group Ltd. Correia & Correia Ltd. Brown Legal Group Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, PricewaterhouseCoopers André Bonieux Carol Paul Gemma Anglade member of Lex Mundi Red Leaf Pvt. Ltd. PricewaterhouseCoopers Deeds registry, Law Courts Brown Legal Group Dave García Dheena Hussain Didier Lenette Garry Ramlochan Jean Baptiste Brown Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, member of Lex Mundi Shah, Hussain & Co. PricewaterhouseCoopers Godwin F. McPherson Brown Legal Group Barristers & Attorneys Hilary Reid Ram L. Roy K.A. Juman-Yessi Steve Christian Brown Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, Fizan Shah PricewaterhouseCoopers Guyana Olympic Brown Legal Group member of Lex Mundi Shah, Hussain & Co. Ramesh Doma Association Christian De Lespinasse Barristers & Attorneys Lisa Russell PricewaterhouseCoopers C.A. Nigel Hughes Cabinet de Lespinasse Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, Shuaib M. Shah Robert Bigaignon Hughes, Fields & Stoby Jean Gerard Eveillard member of Lex Mundi Shah, Hussain & Co. Barristers & Attorneys PricewaterhouseCoopers Harinarine Singh Cabinet Eveillard Malaica Wong Damien Mamet Integrity Commission Enerlio Gassant Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, mArsHAll PricewaterhouseCoopers Chris Fernandes Cabinet Gassant member of Lex Mundi islAnds Legal Services John Fernandes Ltd. Eneland Jabouin Sandra Minott-Phillips Anthony Tomlinson Fabien de Marassé Enouf Juman Yessi Cabinet Jabouin Regis Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, Beca International PricewaterhouseCoopers Descardes member of Lex Mundi Consultants Ltd. Legal Services Kashir Khan Robert Laforest Lorna Phillips Philip A. Okney Primecom Ltd. Ashton Chase Cabinet LaForest Nicholson Phillips, Land Registration Law office of Ashton Attorneys-at-Law Administration Authority Ramdas Mootanah Chase Louis Gary Lissade Arlene Burton Professional Architects Philip Welch Council William Sampson Cabinet Lissade PricewaterhouseCoopers Micronesian Shipping Lincoln Chambers & Salim Succar Agencies Inc. Deviantee Sobarun Associates Cabinet Lissade Eric Crawford Registrar-General's PricewaterhouseCoopers Kenneth Barden Department (Government) Leslie Sobers Claudette Belfont Michael Hall Ministry of Finance Lucia Loretta Desir Cabinet Pierre Delva PricewaterhouseCoopers Jerry Kramer miCronesiA Edward Luckhoo Jean Frederic Sales Viveen Morrison Pacific International, Inc. Wayne Bricknell Luckhoo & Luckhoo Cabinet Sales PricewaterhouseCoopers E - CAD Project Gidel Thomside Pierre Brierre Sekeywi Carruthers mAuritius Management National Shipping Comptable Sekeywi Carruthers & Artisco International Anna H. Mendiola Corporation Ltd. Diggan d'Adesky Associates Yandraduth Googoolye FSM Development Bank Gary Holder D'Adesky Import Export Humprey Taylor Bank of Mauritius Andrea S. Hillyer Orin Hinds & Asscoiates S.A. Taylor Construction Ltd. Independent Arch. Ltd. Emile Giordani Ajay Bhurtun Banymandhub Boolell Kenneth Barden Garry Lhérisson KiriBAti Chambers Ministry of Finance Christopher Ram Batira Tekanito Ram & McRae Gilbert Giordani Urmila Boolell Eric Emeka Akamigbo Lawrence Muller Banymandhub Boolell Pohnpei State Government Rakesh Latchana Raoul Celestin Betio City Council Chambers Ram & McRae Les Entreprises Salomon Saimon Commerciales Joseph Batira Tekarmito Vishwanee Boodhonee Pohnpei State Government Troy Williams Nadal S.A. Development Bank of Banymandhub Boolell Ram & McRae Stephen V. Finnen Martine Chevalier Kirbati Chambers Stephen Finnen's Law Narendra Singh Joseph Palliant Romano Reo Andre Robert Corporation Registrar Ordre des Comptables Land Management Division Benoit Chambers Nigel Niles Professionels Agrees pAlAu Kenneth Barden Rishi Pursem Robin M.S. Stoby, S.C. d'Haiti Ministry of Finance Benoit Chambers Kenneth Barden Robin Stoby Edmonde Suplice Beauzile Matereta Raiman Thierry Chellen Ministry of Finance Robin M.S. Stoby, S.C. Parliament Ministry of Finance & Benoit Chambers Erin E. Johnson R.N. Poonai Youri Latortue Economic Development Office of the Attorney Parliament Iqbal Rajahbalee General Rexford Jackson Office of the People's BLC Chambers Singh, Doodnauth Law Paul Emile Simon Lawyer D. Chinien Frederick W. Reynolds Firm Rigaud Duplan Aomoro Amten Companies Division Office of the Attorney General HAiti Amos Durosier Taoaba & Amten Marc Daruty de Granpre ULLC Daruty de Grandpre Jeffrey L. Beattie Marc Kinson Antoine mAldiVes Office of the Attorney Kareen T. Laplanche Architects Associates Ltd. General A.I. Shipping International UN Habitat Mohamed Hameed Farfat Enterprise Ltd. David Shadel Hamelkart Ataya Jean Vandal Antrac Pvt. Ltd. Gavin Glover The Law Office of Kirk and Abu-Ghazaleh Legal Vandal & Vandal Ahmed Murad Glover & Glover Chambers Shadel Leon Saint -Louis Mazlan & Murad Law Catherine de Rosnay Cristina Castro Avocat jAmAiCA Associates Legis & Partners Western Caroline Trading Margarette Sanon Nicole Foga Hussain Siraj Robert Ferrat Co. Banque de la Republique Foga Daley & Co. Ministry of Higher Legis & Partners William L. Ridpath d'Haiti Education, Employment & Global Trading Social Security Jean Phillipe Chan See Jean Erick Alexis Maersk Ltd. Banque de la République Herbert Winston Grant Ibrahim Naeem d'Haiti Grant, Stewart, Phillips Monetary Authority Parikshat Teeluck & Co. Marc Hebert Ignace Nadiya Hassan Maersk Ltd. Banque de la République Karen Wilson Shaaheen Hameed Reza Subratty d'Haiti Noel Mcken Premier Chambers Maersk Ltd. Robinson Charles Kier Construction Ltd. Jatindra Bhattray Thierry Koenig Banque de la République Alicia P. Hussey PricewaterhouseCoopers Maigrot Koenig d'Haiti Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, member of Lex Mundi 70 Doing Business in sMALL isLAnD DeVeLoPing sTATes 2008 pApuA new singApore Kit Min Chye Andie A. Wilkie timor-leste guineA Tan Peng Chin LLC Gordon, Gordon & Co. Angela Lim Ulderico Fernandes Tyson Boboro Baker & McKenzie, Wong Shen Yi Thio Leandra Gabrielle Verneuil Alfandega Allens Arthur Robinson & Leow TSMP Law Corporation Gordon, Gordon & Co. Aderito LCA de Araujo Vincent Bull Blue Oceans Venture Pte. Wan Sin Import & Export Mary Juliana Charles Archtimor Engineering Allens Arthur Robinson Ltd. Agencies Gordon, Gordon & Co. Consultant Richard Flynn Caledonian Commodity Beng Hong Ong High Court Registrar Gina Corte Real Blake Dawson Waldron Trading Pte. Ltd. Wong Tan & Molly Lim LLC Mac Stephen Aubertin Business Registration Unit, David Caradus City Developments Ltd. Cynthia Tan Kimberly Roheman Directorate of Commerce PricewaterhouseCoopers Nish Shetty Wong Tan & Molly Lim LLC McNamara & Co. Consultoria de Lei Esther Kendino Clifford Chance Wong Yik Wee Liew Candace Cadasse Polius Hugo Nogueira Campanico PricewaterhouseCoopers Pte. Ltd. WongPartnership Nicholas John & Co. CRA Timor Thomas Taberia Philip Rapp solomon Peterson D. Francis Miguel Carreira Martins PricewaterhouseCoopers Clifford Chance Wong Pte. Ltd. islAnds Peterson D. Francis CRA Timor Gaudi Kidu Worldwide Shipping & Department of Finance and Pedro Sousa Structon Architects, Ltd. Mark Rowley Customs Services Ltd. Credit Bureau (Singapore) Treasury Department of Land and Richard Peterkin Property, Ministry of sAmoA Pte Ltd. James Apaniai PricewaterhouseCoopers Justice Chi Duan Gooi James Apaniai Lawyers Murray Drake Cornelio Pacheco Donaldson & Burkinshaw, Procurement Services Drake & Co. member of Lex Mundi Phillip Tagini International JVK International Movers Monash University Lawrie Burich May Ching Ida Han st. VinCent And Jose Pedro Camoes L. Burich - Building Donaldson & Burkinshaw, Don Boykin tHe grenAdines LBH-TL Contractors member of Lex Mundi Pacific Architects, Ltd. Colin Heartwell Arthur R. Penn Manoj Sandrasegara Gregory Joseph Sojnocki Arthur Williams Ministry of Development Lesa ma Penn Drew Napier PricewaterhouseCoopers Agnes E. Cato Jackson Lay Patea Malo Setefano Sushil Nair John Sullivan Cato & Cato Palm Spring Estates Ministry of Natural Drew Napier Sol - Law Mira E. Commissiong Felismino Garcia Cardoso Resources & Environment Global Trade Well Zarja Cibej Equity Chambers Prosecutor's Office, UN Shan Shiraz Ali Usman Singapore High Court Registrar compound Tradepac Marketing Ltd. st. Kitts And Audrey Ng neVis Kay Bacchus-Browne Flavio Lorza Prosecutor's Office, UN são tomé And Kelvin Chia Partnership Kay Bacchs - Browne compound prinCipe Marcella Liburd Chambers Bryant & Liburd Bernadine Dublin Pedro Andrade André Aureliano Aragão Keppel Land International Anastacia Saunders Labour Department Public Defender André Aureliano Aragão Ltd. CaribTrans Cherryden Mazarado Advogado Kong Hwa Chan Trading Douglas L.A. Williams Dahlia Joseph Law Firm of Phillips & Rocky Constructions Agostinho Q.S.A. Fernandes Pte. Ltd. Daniel Brantley & Williams Rafael Ribeiro Directorate of Taxes Shi-Chien Chia Associates Moulton Mayers SDV Frederico da Glória Ministry of Industry & Trade L. Everette Martin Moulton Mayers Roberto Monteiro Kiluange Tiny Eastern Caribbean Central Architects SDV JuriSTEP Lui Hai Tan Bank, Securities Exchange Ministry of Trade & Nicole Sylvester Francisco Soares Edmar Carvalho Industry High Court Registrar O. R. Sylvester & Co. Serviço do Imposto de Miranda Correia Michella Adrien Richard Peterkin Timor Leste Amendoeira & Associados Hui Jia Ang PricewaterhouseCoopers Michella Adrien Law PricewaterhouseCoopers Marcia Dawes Office seyCHelles Paula Eastwood surinAme Shearman & Sterling LLP PricewaterhouseCoopers Nicholas Brisbane Tjia Soh Siang Serge Rouillon N. Brisbane & Associates Anoeschka Debipersad Tjia & Tchai Associates Attorney-at-Law QBB (Pte) Ltd. Charles Walwyn A. E. Debipersad & Maria das Dores Gomes France Gonzalves Bonte Nanda Kumar PricewaterhouseCoopers Associates Rajah & Tann Tribunal Distrital de Dili Shelton M. Jolicoeur Neil Coates Angèle J. Karg Rui Gomes International Law & Patrick Ang PricewaterhouseCoopers BDO AbrahamsRaijmann & UNDP Corporate Services (PTY) Rajah & Tann Partners Ltd. Vernon S. Veira Airinn Loh Eusebio Guterres Vernon S. Veira & Anouschka Nabibaks UNIDO Business Hughes N. Adam Schenker Pte. Ltd. Associates BDO AbrahamsRaijmann & Regulatory consultant Land Marine Limited Partners Andrew Seah Kamesha Graham Candido Conceicao Alex Ellenberger Schenker Pte. Ltd. WalwynLaw Consuelo-Andrea Denz USAID Locus Architecture Pty. BDO AbrahamsRaijmann & Ltd. Cyril Dumon Partners Vital dos Santos SDV International st. luCiA VSP - Vital dos Santos & Leslie Boniface Logistics Gillian Vidal-Jules G. Clide Cambridge Partners Ministry of Employment Attorney General's Handels-, Krediet- and Social Affairs Service Point Chambers en Industrie Bank Marie-Pierre Lloyd Shook Lin & Bok (in joint (Hakrinbank) N.V. venture with Allen & Bradley Paul Ministry of Employment Overy) Bradley Paul Associates Jos Steeman Shipping N.V. and Social Affairs Chia Shi Chien Carol J. Gedeon Johan Kastelein Conrad Lablache Singapore Land Authority Chancery Chambers KDV Architects Pardiwalla Twomey Lablache Siu Ing Teng Thaddeus M. Antoine Stanley Marica Law Firm Marica Bernard L. Pool Singapore Land Authority Francis & Antoine Pool & Patel Han Li Toh Jennifer van Dijk-Silos Subordinate Courts Law Firm Van Dijk-Silos Kannan Ramesh Radjen Soerdjbalie Tan Kok Quan Partnership Notariaat R.A. Soerdjbalie AcknowLeDgMenTs 71 tongA Nicole Ferreira-Aaron M. Hamel-Smith & Co., Inoke Afu member of Lex Mundi Dateline Shipping & Travel Ltd. Rena M. Mahadeo M. Hamel-Smith & Co., Don Jacobson member of Lex Mundi Ministry of Finance Stacy-Lee Daniell Nailasikau Halatuituia M. Hamel-Smith & Co., Tomasi Fakahua member of Lex Mundi Sione Tomasi Naite Deborah Ragoonath Fakahua Law Office PricewaterhouseCoopers Diana Warner Peter Inglefield Skip's Custom Joinery Ltd. PricewaterhouseCoopers Tony Ford Ramdath Dave Rampersad Supreme Court R.D. Rampersad & Co. Lee Miller Steve Beckles Waste Management Ltd. R.D. Rampersad & Co. trinidAd And S. I. Primus & Sons Ltd. toBAgo Ramesh Lutchman Ronald Patience TransUnion Cargo Consolidators Trinity Chambers Agency Ltd. Thomas Johnson Mark Ramkerrysingh York University, Osgood Fitzwilliam Stone Furness Hall Law School - Smith & Morgan Alvaro Montenegro VAnuAtu HSMDT Ltd. Mark Stafford Stephen A. Singh BDO Barrett and Partners LEX Carribbean Christopher Dawson Celeste Mohammed Dawson Builders M. Hamel-Smith & Co., John Malcolm member of Lex Mundi National Bank of Vanuatu Helen Ross M. Hamel-Smith & Co., Dani Yawa member of Lex Mundi Pacific Lawyers Jonathan Walker Arthur Victor Faerua M. Hamel-Smith & Co., School of Law, University member of Lex Mundi of the South Pacific Keomi Lourenco Silas Charles Hakwa M. Hamel-Smith & Co., Silas Charles Hakwa & member of Lex Mundi Associates Myrna Robinson-Walters M. Hamel-Smith & Co., member of Lex Mundi THEWORLD BANK G I M WWW.DOINGBUSINESS.ORG