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Thailand: Doing Business score up, but ranking slips to 27th
Thailand’s ranking among 190 economies in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report 2019 fell a notch to 27th, though its overall score improved by 1.06 percentage points to 78.45.
Thailand’s EODB score, an absolute measure of the country’s progress toward global best practices, increased from 77.39 last year.
“As a comparative measure, other countries did better than Thailand despite the country improving,” said Mara Warwick, the World Bank’s country director for Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines, in a videoconference on Thursday.
Thailand continues to demonstrate commitment to improving the business climate for private enterprises, she said.
Sustained focus on business regulatory reform in recent years is helping to narrow the gap between Thailand and global regulatory best practices.
Thailand saw its ranking for business- friendly countries jump to 26th for 2018 from 48th the previous year.
Thailand has made the second-highest number of reforms since first being ranked in the Doing Business survey in 2003, she said.
Thailand made great strides in four areas — starting a business, getting electricity, paying taxes and trading across borders — through the new reforms.
Starting a business was made less costly by introducing fixed registration fees, while getting electricity was made easier by streamlining the number of procedures needed to obtain a new connection, and making electricity tariff changes more transparent.
Paying taxes became easier through enhancements to the online platform for calculating and filing corporate income tax and trading across borders was made faster by introducing an e-matching system for electronic cargo control, thus reducing the time for border compliance.
Pakorn Nilprapunt, secretary-general for the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), said the latest report, based on a May-to-May survey, found the country gained a higher overall score under the World Bank’s changed formula from distance of frontier earlier to overall ease of doing business (OEDB).
“We are focusing on the higher score rather than the lower ranking because it reflects that the country did better on the OEDB measure. Thailand is among the strongest performers on this indicator, but we need to develop in several areas to further improve,” he said.
Thailand earned the highest score in getting electricity with 98.75, followed by 92.72 for starting a business, 84.65 for trading across borders, 77.72 for paying taxes, 76.64 for resolving insolvency, 75 for protecting minority investors, 71.86 for dealing with construction permits, 70 for getting credit, 69.47 for registering property, and 67.91 for enforcing contracts.
With the digital infrastructure base being developed under the government’s Thailand 4.0 policy, OPDC expects to shorten the regulatory process by 50% by the end of 2019 and improving operational efficiency, he said.
Amid positive momentum, the country’s score could improve next year, though political factors could be a concern as the general election approaches next year.
“Political factors could lead to higher uncertainty, especially about the new government’s policies, which may require new enforcement,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said that doing business in Thailand has become easier, as seen by the higher score, but other counties performed better, so the country’s ranking declined.
“We haven’t deteriorated as we scored higher, but the increase was not enough. Digitisation is at heart for all state agencies in providing one-stop service, while amending laws to streamline the process is what we need to develop further,” he said.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1568782/doing-business-score-up-but-ranking-slips-to-27th