World Bank: Greece reached 72nd place for business environment

Greece moved up to the 72th position from 89th last year in the ranking of 189 countries by the World Bank (WB) based on the business environment.

According to the Doing Business 2014 report of the World Bank, the country ranking was based on 10 indicators that record the number of procedures, time and cost of setting up and running businesses.

These indicators are related to business start-ups, receiving construction permits, electricity supply, registration of property, access to borrowing, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, validity of contracts and clearing bankrupt firms.

The highest position of Greece is in the criterion of business start-ups (36th) and cross-border trade (52nd). Greece’s ranks in relation to the other criteria are: Paying taxes (53rd), access to electricity (61st), receiving construction permits (66th), protecting investors (80th), access to credit (86th), liquidation (87th), power of contracts (98th) and property registration (161st).

The country most friendly for companies in the WB ranking is Singapore, followed by Hong Kong. WB notes that the gap between the countries with the best and worst performance has dropped this year. Georgia, Malaysia and eight high-income countries are among the top ten friendliest countries for business.

The report recorded that reforms this year reached 238 from 114 countries in improving their business environment, against 201 reforms from 108 economies last year, an increase of 18%.