Doing Business Blog - The World Bank Group

Singapore focuses on doing business in APEC

Singapore, ranked 1 out of 181 economies on the ease of Doing Business, is hosting the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Conference this spring.  APEC covers 21 countries, and senior APEC officials are making resisting protectionism and accelerating economic integration key priorities for this year’s meeting.

One new feature of the conference is an initiative by Singapore to identify the top areas of regulatory barrier when doing business in economies of APEC. To achieve this, it is introducing an "Ease of Doing Business" survey, based on that of the Doing Business project. It aims to provide suggestions on the areas and types of reforms to regulations that businesses would like to see APEC governments embark on.

Singapore wants to highlight the results from the survey to the APEC governments to help improve the ease of doing business in the 21 member economies. Any business located in one of the 21 APEC countries can complete the survey through this link. 

Better Practice Comes to New York City Building Codes

On July 1, 2008, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the launch of the new City of New York Construction Codes, the first modernization of the Building Code since 1968. The Building Code in New York City had not been updated for almost 40 years. Not anymore. The new Codes require the Building Department to revise the Codes every 3 years to incorporate new standards, technologies and materials.  As of July 1, 2009, everyone is required to follow the new rules.

Trade finance

IFC will double its guarantee program for global trade finance to $3 billion. Find out more about the program and see if banks in your country are part of it. http://www.ifc.org/GTFP

 

The Birth of a Doing Business Report

November 14 was my due date: I'm supposed to deliver my first baby. It is a girl. Nothing has happened so far. Looking back over the past 9 months, I'm wondering about other events in life that take about the same time and go by (too) fast. A graduate program for example. Or the Doing Business report cycle.

Early January of each year, Doing Business sends out surveys, one for each of the 10 topics, to our 6,700 local experts in 181 economies around the world.

Local experts or 'respondents' as we call them, are asked to return the completed questionnaire 3 weeks later, towards early February. Some do it immediately, others need more encouragement. All 6,700 experts share their expertise for free, "pro bono", knowing their work- through the publication of the Doing Business reports, helps to inspire governments to reform business regulations and cut red-tape.

Knowing the “Right Person”

Trying to hunt for the “real formula of fees” to connect to electricity can be a challenge in Tajikistan. I realized that during my recent trip for data collection there. Special decrees and fee schedules are not publicly available. Construction specialists warned me of reluctance on the side of state agencies to share information. Phone calls to the State Electric Company (Barki Tojik) to get the real fee schedule and ultimate cost that companies would have to pay for obtaining electricity connection, were in vain. The person on the other end in the State Electric Company was not forthcoming.

I had to do it the only way: find “the right person”.

Collecting Data for Doing Business – “Imagination at Work”

Diplomatic protocol is not dead – it helped me obtain the Standing Orders of the Parliament of Swaziland!

“Diplomatic protocol is dying”. That is what I was told at my introductory university class of what had just been re-baptized “regional studies and diplomacy” where this fascinating word 'diplomacy' had been pushed to a timid second place, with “that kind of useless stuff, you know!”

Doing Business data collection can be perfect on-the-job training in Internet browsing, phone and face-to-face communication, psychology, cultural sensitivity, effective business letter writing… The highlight of this fall was a lesson in irony--seemingly straightforward, practically next to impossible. I needed to obtain the Standing Orders of the Parliament of Swaziland, which is fundamental legal material for the Doing Business transparency project. And what really made me succeed in this venture is my everlasting fascination with the magnificent elegant style of the old days’ diplomatic correspondence, carried by horseback couriers.