Malaysia ranks 23rd in World Bank's 2017 Doing Business Report

Malaysia is ranked 23rd out of 190 economies in the World Bank's 2017 Doing Business Report (DB 2017), down a notch from its 22nd position last year.

At 23rd spot, Malaysia is ahead of countries such as Switzerland (31st), France (29th), Netherlands (28th), United Arab Emirates (26th), Japan (34th), Thailand (46th), China (78th) and India (130th), said Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) director-general, Datuk Mohd Razali Hussain.

Malaysia is also ranked second in ASEAN in the report after Singapore and 7th in the Asia Pacific after New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia.

Mohd Razali told a media briefing this here yesterday to share the methodology and highlights of the DB 2017.

He said the report continues the ongoing process of introducing improvements involving 10 of the 11 DB indicator sets.

Based on the improved measurements, Malaysia's 23rd placing was based on a Distance to Frontier (DTF) score of 78.11 in DB 2017. This is in contrast to 22nd out of 189 economies in the DB 2016, with a DTF score of 78.18.

Under the old methodology, Malaysia was ranked 18th in the DB 2016.

Mohd Razali Hussain said the DB 2017 further refined the methodology this year with the "Paying Taxes" indicator expanded and gender dimension being added in three of the 11 indicators.

"The Paying Taxes indicator set has been expanded to cover the post filing processes (what happens after a firm pays taxes) such as tax refunds, tax audits and administrative tax appeals.

"A gender dimension has been included in four of the 11 indicator sets which sees Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts presenting a gender dimension for the first time this year," he added.

Meanwhile, Malaysia is credited alongside Japan as being the best performers on the "Reliability of Supply and Transparency of Tariffs Index" under the "Getting Electricity" indicator.

Last year, the country was also one of the best performers on this index.

Malaysia is also acknowledged as having made paying taxes easier by enhancing the electronic system for filing and paying the goods and services tax (GST).

The country is also recognised as one of the economies to have introduced the bureau or registry credit scores as a value-added service. -- Bernama