World Bank. 2013. Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-9984-2. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

Doing Business 2014 is the 11th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time.

Regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business are covered: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. The employing workers data are not included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business.

Data in Doing Business 2014 are current as of June 1, 2013. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why.

Contents

Preface
Overview
About Doing Business: measuring for impact
Research on the effects of business regulations

Case studies
Why are minimum capital requirements a concern for entrepreneurs?
What role should risk-based inspections play in construction?
Tackling high electricity connection costs: Trinidad and Tobago’s new approach
Implementing electronic tax filing and payments in Malaysia
Implementing trade single windows in Singapore, Colombia and Azerbaijan
Improving court efficiency: the Republic of Korea’s e-court experience

Topic notes
Starting a business
Dealing with construction permits
Getting electricity
Registering property
Getting credit
Protecting investors
Paying taxes
Trading across borders
Enforcing contracts
Resolving insolvency
Annex: employing workers
References
Data notes
Ease of doing business and distance to frontier
Summaries of Doing Business reforms in 2012/13
Country tables
Employing workers data
Acknowledgments

Preface

A thriving private sector—with new firms entering the market, creating jobs and developing innovative products—contributes to a more prosperous society. Governments play a crucial role in supporting a dynamic ecosystem for firms. They set the rules that establish and clarigy propety rights. reduce the coast of resolving disputes and increase the predictability of economic transactions. Without good rules that are evenly enforced, entrepreneurs have a harder time starting and growing the small and medium-size firms that are the engines of growth and job creation for most economies around the world.

Doing Business 2014 is the 11th in a series of annual reports benchnarking the regulations that affect the private sector firms. in particular small and medium-size enterprises. The report presents quantitative indicators on 11 areas of business regulation for 189 economies. Four economies have been added this year - Libya. Myanmar. San Marino and South Sudan/ The data are current as of June 2013.

The Doing Business project aims to deliver a body of knowledge that will catalyze reforms and help improve the quality of the rules underpinning the activities of the private sector. This matter because in a global economy characterized by constant change and transformation, it makes a difference whether the rules are sensible or excessively burdensome, whether they create perverse incentives or help establish a level playing field. whether they safeguard transparency and encourage adequate levels of competition. To have a tool that allows economies to track progress over time and with respect to each other in the development of the building blocks of a good business environment is crucial for the creation of a more prosperous world, with increased opportunities for everyone.

We have been excited to see a global convergence toward good practices in business regulations. The data show that economies in all regions of the world and of all income levels have made important strides in improving the quality of the rules underpinning private sector activity. This year the findings have been even more encouraging—low-income economies have improved their business regulations at twice the rate that high-income economies have.

These developments support the twin World Bank Group goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. By providing useful insights into good practices worldwide in business regulations, Doing Business helps mobilize policy makers to reduce the cost and complexity of government procedures and to improve the quality of institutions. Such change serves the underprivileged the most—where more firms enter the formal sector, entrepreneurs have a greater chance to grow their businesses and produce jobs, and workers are more likely to enjoy the benefit of regulations such as social protections and safety regulations.

We encourage you to give feedback on the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org) and join the conversation as we shape the project in the years to come to make it a more effective mechanism for better business regulation.

Sincerely,
Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Managing Director
World Bank Group