A new report from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the
World Bank finds that Laos has improved its business climate by making it
easier for entrepreneurs to start a business, pay taxes, and trade across
borders.
The annual Doing Business Ranking
2013, which was released to Lao media at the World Bank office in Vientiane
yesterday, shows that Laos has made paying taxes less costly for companies by
reducing the corporate income tax rate.
Laos also made starting a
business easier by allowing entrepreneurs to apply for tax registration at the
time of incorporation, the report titled Smarter Regulations for Small and
Medium-Size Enterprises highlights.
With those three regulatory
reforms, Laos, alongside Mongolia, is the economy with the most reforms in East
Asia and the Pacific this year, the report highlights.
“Since 2006, the Doing Business
report has recorded a total of ten positive regulatory reforms that have made
it easier for entrepreneurs to do business in Laos,” said the Resident
Representative in Laos of IFC, the arm of the World Bank Group focused on
private sector development.
“The IFC has a long-standing
partnership with the government of Laos. We help to improve business laws and
regulations such as the investment promotion law, which has made it easier to
start a business, and the general tax law, which has made it faster and less
costly for businesses to pay taxes – thereby contributing to the country’s
inclusive economic growth.”
The report notes that Laos also
reduced the time to export and import goods by implementing the ASYCUDA
electronic data interchange system at the Thanaleng–Friendship Bridge border
crossing.
“The World Bank has been working
with the government of Laos to support trade reforms for more than four years
now, through the Customs and Trade Facilitation Project and the Trade
Development Facility,” said the World Bank’s Country Manager in Laos, Ms Keiko
Miwa.
“We are glad that efforts by the
government to modernise border systems, including through the deployment of
ASYCUDA, are starting to make trade faster and simpler for the private sector.
Laos can do more to improve its investment climate, but things are definitely
moving in the right direction, and we look forward to supporting the government
in this important effort.”
The report, which covers the
period from June 2011 to June 2012 and which uses data for indicators that measure
regulation affecting 10 key areas of the life cycle of local businesses, finds
that 11 of 24 economies in East Asia and the Pacific improved business
regulations in the past year.
Twenty-three economies in East
Asia and the Pacific have made their regulatory environment more
business-friendly since 2005. During that time, China made the greatest
progress in improving business regulations for local entrepreneurs.
Singapore tops the global ranking
in ease of doing business for the seventh consecutive year, while Hong Kong
SAR, China, holds onto the second spot. Joining them on the list of the 10
economies with the most business-friendly regulations are, in this order: New
Zealand, the United States, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Republic
of Korea, Georgia, and Australia.
Source: Vientiane Times
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