ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is ranked 128th out of the 189 countries surveyed for the latest World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ annual report, a drop of 18 places from last year.

It means it is not very easy, in fact hard, for entrepreneurs to open a business, get electric power and import a container in Pakistan.

The report, released on Wednesday, for the first time included Lahore in addition to Karachi to collect labour market regulation data.

However, data from both cities with reference to difficulty of hiring, rigidity of hours, difficulty of redundancy, redundancy cost, unemployment protection scheme, health insurance for permanent employees and court sections specialising in labour disputes are the same.

According to summary of ‘Doing Business’ reforms in 2013-14, Pakistan has made trading across borders easier by introducing a fully automated, computerised system for the submission and processing of export and import documents.

The report, titled ‘Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency’, also expands the data for three of the 10 topics covered, and there are plans to do so for five more topics next year.

The report finds that in the past year governments around the world continued to implement a broad range of reforms aimed at improving the regulatory environment for local entrepreneurs.

Singapore tops the rankings on ease of doing business. Others on the top 10 are: (from 2-10) New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, South Korea, Norway, the US, Britain, Finland and Australia.

AFP adds: But the report, despite revisions to its methodology after upsetting China in past years, left emerging market giants far down the list, fast growth and success in drawing investment notwithstanding.

China ranked 90th, barely improved from 93 a year ago; Brazil is 120th, also up three places; and India was ranked at 142, two spots worse than before.

All three ranked lower than troubled economies and difficult investment environments like Russia and Greece. But that only underscored the admittedly narrow focus of the survey, in terms of assessing a country’s success.

“‘Doing Business’ measures a slender segment of the complex organism that any modern economy is,” admitted World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu in a foreword to the report.

“An economy can do poorly on ‘Doing Business’ indicators but do well in macroeconomic policy or social welfare interventions.”

Published in Dawn, October 30th , 2014