|
News
Estonia Ranks Highest Among Eastern European Countries in Terms of Ease of Doing Business
17.09.2009
Estonia was ranked highest among the Eastern European countries on the Ease of Doing Business index recently published by the World Bank; out of all countries, Estonia earned a high 24th ranking (see http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/). A number of Tark & Co’s lawyers contributed to compiling the index, completing questionnaires it was based on.
The index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 10 topics, covering the period June 2008 through May 2009 (the topics include starting and closing a business, enforcing contracts, paying taxes, hiring and firing workers, getting credit, trading across borders, etc.). Estonia scored highest on the trading across borders index and lowest on the difficulty of hiring and firing and the rigidity of hours indicators. However, it should be noted that there has been a considerable liberalisation of the regulation of employment recently due to the enactment of the new Employment Contracts Act, and therefore Estonia can hope to gain better rankings in this category in the future. Moreover, our experience shows that land and commercial register procedures can actually take much less time than the average figures taken into account in preparing the index thanks to the online facilities available.
It is also worth noting that according to a survey conduced by Transparency International in 2008, Estonia and Slovenia have the lowest corruption level among the Eastern European countries (being in the 26th and 27th place among all countries respectively)
(see http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008/cpi_2008_table)
