WB:Thailand's business start-up ranking now stands at 49th

BANGKOK, October 28 (TNA) - The World Bank says that Thailand remains among the world's top 50 rankings in its Doing Business 2016 Report and remains at the 3rd rank among 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Ulrich Zachau, the World Bank Country Director, told a press conference in Bangkok on Wednesday, jointly held with the Thai government's Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), that the US-based World Bank has ranked Thailand the 49th, out of 189 nations, in its Doing Business 2016 Report, noting that Thailand's project on digitalizing land data should help improve the Kingdom's position in the future. Zachau acknowledged, however, that Thailand's latest ranking was downward from its 47th position in the World Bank's previous report due to its considered-time consuming in business start-up requests and no access to credit records of clients of financial institutes. Zachau explained that, apart from difficulties in borrowing by local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and accessing to credit information by clients of financial institutes, a business start-up application in Thailand took longer than 20 days, while the process in other countries was faster. Besides, requests for construction permission and doubted justice for SMEs in Thailand were other reasons for the country's lower ranking, while other countries in the region accelerated their reform in many areas. Zachau pointed out that Indonesia introduced online systems for tax payment and social security contributions, while borrowers in Vietnam could check their credit ratings by themselves. According to the World Bank's country director, Singapore remains at the 1st rank, Hong Kong at the 5th, Taiwan at the 11th, Malaysia at the 18th, China at the 84th, Indonesia at the 109th and the Philippines at the 103th. (TNA)