Doing Business In China. The Regulatory Song Remains the Same.

The World Bank recently came out with its yearly report ranking countries on the ease of doing business within them, based mostly on their business regulations The news on China is that there was really no news at all. China did move down from 86 out of the 183 countries ranked, but this was due more to strong reform efforts in other countries than to China's having instituted any new restrictive measures against business.

Singapore placed first, Hong Kong third, the United States fourth, Thailand a rather surprising (to me anyway) 12th, Japan 15th, Korea 19th, Taiwan 46th (big jump), and Vietnam 93rd. Go here for the overview. In the individual categories, China ranked as follows:

Starting a Business 151
Construction Permits 180
Employing Workers 140
Registering Property 32
Getting Credit 61
Protecting Investors 93
Paying Taxes 130
Trading Across Borders 44
Enforcing Contracts 18
Closing a Business 65

These numbers seem about right to me a forming a company in China (at least for foreign entities) is more difficult and costly than any other country of which I am aware. But even though enforcing contracts in China is far better than generally believed, I am still surprised that it would rank so high in that category.

What do you think?