Iran’s rank for ‘ease of doing business’ in 2015 has been improved to 130th position globally, from 132nd in 2014, according to a new World Bank report.
The “Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency” report released Wednesday showed that Iran has made excellent progress towards slashing red tape and making it easier to do business in the country, although there is still work to be done in areas including tax, property transfers and contract enforcement.
The report does state that Iran has notched up in the rankings to 65th best place in the world to create a new business start-up, up 8 notches on the 2014 report.
The report also highlights that starting a business in Iran needs 6 procedures and takes roughly 12 working days to complete the process.
It states that some of the procedures when applying to set up a business are: previous criminal record checks, registration paperwork, notarization and paying for stamp duty, which are relatively cheap compared to other regional countries.
The report notes that Iran has moved up one slot to 66th place in enforcing contracts for small to medium businesses. This point is further strengthened when compared with other countries in the Middle East and North African region, with Iran scoring 40.0 points against the regional average of 43.6.
Insolvency over the past 12 months has become an issue with Iran dropping one place to 138, the report said.
“The Islamic Republic scores 2.0 out of 3 points on the commencement of proceedings index, 3.0 out of 6 points on the management of debtor’s assets index, 0.0 out of 3 points on the reorganization proceedings index, and 2.0 out of 4 points on the creditor participation index.”
Globally, Iran stands 161st in the ranking of 189 economies on the ease of registering property and it is climbing slowly upwards in this ranking, the report said. Several other countries in the region are placed as follows: Georgia is 15th, Turkey is 55th, and Azerbaijan is 80th.
The report measures the ease of doing business in 189 economies based on 11 business-related regulations, including business start-up, getting credit, getting electricity, and cross-border trading. The report does not cover the full breadth of business concerns, such as security, macroeconomic stability, or corruption.
