Doing Business in Landlocked Economies 2009 draws on the data of the global Doing Business project as well as the findings of Doing Business 2009, the sixth in a series of annual reports published by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation.

Doing Business analyzes government regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it in 181 economies, including 38 landlocked economies: Afghanistan, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Luxembourg, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, Serbia, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Data are current as of June 1, 2008.

Regulations affecting 10 areas of everyday business are measured: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. Comparisons with other economies in this report are based on the indicators in Doing Business 2009.

Other areas important to business—such as a country’s proximity to large markets, the quality of infrastructure services (other than services related to trading across borders), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions—are not studied directly by Doing Business.

OVERVIEW
For an entrepreneur opening a new business in Lao PDR, completing the procedures for start-up would take more than 100 days. In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia it would take only 9. For a company to comply with all tax requirements in Armenia would require 50 separate payments and 958 administrative hours a year. Doing the same in Botswana would take only 19 payments and 140 hours. And while exporting a 20-foot container of textiles would require 13 documents in the Kyrgyz Republic, 4 documents would suffice in the Czech Republic. ...

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© 2008 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
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CONTENS
Overview 1
Doing Business topics 11
Ease of doing business 23
Indicator tables 26
Country tables 33
Acknowledgments 71

Visit Doing Business Website

The Doing Business Project...
provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 181 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.

In 1664 William Petty, an adviser to England’s Charles II, compiled the first known national accounts. He made 4 entries. On the expense side, “food, housing, clothes and all other necessaries” were estimated at £40 million. National income was split among 3 sources: £8 million from land, £7 million from other personal estates and £25 million from labor income.

In later centuries estimates of country income, expenditure and material inputs and outputs became more abundant. But it was not until the 1940s that a systematic framework was developed for measuring national income and expenditure, under the direction of British economist John Maynard Keynes. As the methodology became an international standard, comparisons of countries’ financial positions became possible. Today the macroeconomic indicators in national accounts are standard in every country.

Governments committed to the economic health of their country and opportunities for its citizens now focus on more than macroeconomic conditions.

They also pay attention to the laws, regulations and institutional arrangements that shape daily economic activity. Until very recently, however, there were no globally available indicator sets for monitoring these microeconomic factors and analyzing their relevance.

The first efforts, in the 1980s, drew on perceptions data from expert or business surveys. Such surveys are useful gauges of economic and policy conditions. But their reliance on perceptions and their incomplete coverage of poor countries limit their usefulness for analysis.

The Doing Business project, launched 7 years ago, goes one step further. It looks at domestic small and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle. Doing Business and the standard cost model initially developed and applied in the Netherlands are, for the present, the only standard tools used across a broad range of jurisdictions to measure the impact of government rule-making on business activity.

The first Doing Business report, published in 2003, covered 5 indicator sets in 133 economies. This year’s report covers 10 indicator sets in 181 economies. The project has benefited from feedback from governments, academics, practitioners and reviewers. The initial goal remains: to provide an objective basis for understanding and improving the regulatory environment for business.

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