Mongolia business environment ranked 73rd

The Mongolia business environment has been ranked 73rd in the ‘Doing Business 2011’, the eighth in a series of annual reports published by IFC and the World Bank.

The report ranks 183 economies on key aspects of business regulation for domestic firms. This year’s report showed that Mongolia moved backed 10 places from ‘Doing Business 2010’. During the video conference held at the WB Mongolia Office, it was said that this doesn’t mean that Mongolia’s business environment worsened. However, other countries carried out reforms in their business environment faster.

According to the report, Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand are leading in the ease of doing business.
Vietnam has been included in the 10 best countries that are conducting reform and could cut 50 percent of associated costs for registration such as at one-step service, leasing, taxation and getting construction permits.

This index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 9 topics made up of a variety of indicators that give equal weight to each topic. The rankings are from the Doing Business 2011 report, covering the period of June 2009 through May 2010.

The topics are: Starting a business, Dealing with constructional permits, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts and Closing a business.

Mongolia’s government declared 2010 as the Year of the Business Environment Reform and implemented a program to encourage small and medium-sized enterprise. There appeared advancements in taxation and trading. For instance, one-step service and customs procedures have been eased, the risk management system has been partly introduced, and the days of obtaining import and export documents were reduced by
9-10 days. The report reviewed that East Asia and the Pacific region was the most active in the term of 8 years. B.Ganbat, chief of the Innovation Committee at the National Development and Innovation Committee, said “There are time differences in this report that covered the period from June 2009 through May 2010. We started reforming the business environment from last March. There are differences in even figures. Also adoption of amended law on Banking was not included in the report. It shows the necessity to cooperate in information exchange. What we have done this year will be reviewed by next year’s report. The annual action plan for business reform was made with indications from the starting of a business until the business closes. According to the plan, we focus our activity in two directions: to clear up clauses in the law regarding legal reform in managing a business, and; to reduce procedures of obtaining permits to manage a business.

Services at State organizations such as customs, taxation, standardization and registration are being eased and a one-step concept is being introduced. The report for the third quarter of this year indicated much progress in these areas. As for judicial reform, it is so slow because of the periodic issue. Many bills and draft regulations have been submitted to the government and parliament for amendments. We expect that some of the main changes will be made before closing of the autumn session. It will make doing business easier.”

Sergey Triplin from IFC, said that he does not think that Mongolia’s reforming process is slow and warned that if government makes a mistake while hurrying to resolve important matters, there will be more negative
consequences like the privatization practice that previously occurred in Mongolia.

source: The mongol Messenger newspaper