Thailand’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2020 list has edged up 6 places, from 27th to 21st this year from 190 countries surveyed

The World Bank ranked Singapore second and Malaysia 12th in Doing Business 2020 report. In the ranking, Thailand’s scored increased 1.65 to 80.10, the highest in the past six years.

Thailand has done better in dealing with construction permits by cutting 19 procedures to 14 and waiting times for approval from 118 days to 113 days, climbing the rank to 34th from 67th, said the report.

Thailand’s Finance Minister, Uttama Savanayana, said Thailand has moved up six places among the 190 countries in the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business 2020” report.

Uttama added that protecting minority investors had been highlighted by the Thai government, pushing up the rank in this category to third place from 15th last year.

The finance minister however, said Thailand still needs to make progress in many areas to facilitate investments.

While many economies in the East Asia and the Pacific region make doing business relatively easy, the pace of reforms has slowed from previous years.

Reforms were implemented in fewer than half of its economies (12 out of 25). Even so, five East Asia and the Pacific economies are among the top 25 global performers, including Singapore(2^nd), Hong Kong SAR, China (3^rd); Malaysia (12^th); Taiwan, China (15^th); and Thailand (21^st). China jumped in the ranking to 31^st and is among the top 10 improvers for a second consecutive year.

A country’s ease of doing business score is reflected on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest and 100 represents the best performance.

Thailand saw a significant improvement in ranking in two indicators: dealing with construction permits, which ranked 34th with a score of 77.3, up from 67th with a score of 71.9 in 2019; and protecting minority investors, which ranked 3rd with a score of 86, up from 15th with a score of 86.

Best places to do business

The top 10 best places in the world to do business, according to the study, are New Zealand (with a score of 86.8 out of 100), Singapore (86.2), Hong Kong SAR, China (85.3), Denmark (85.3), the Republic of Korea (84), the United States (84), Georgia (83.7), the United Kingdom (83.5), Norway (82.6), and Sweden (82).