There are 22 procedures to go through when seeking construction permits and takes about 214 days the report points out.

Sri Lanka is ranked 105 among 183 countries in a World Bank report ‘Doing Business 2010: Reforming through Difficult Times’ behind Pakistan (ranked 85) and Maldives (87) after being the top reformer in South Asia in the 2009 edition.

Doing Business 2010 is the seventh in the series of annual reports published by the World Bank and its private sector arm International Finance Corporation.

"A record 70 percent or 131 of 183 economies around the globe reformed business regulation between June 2008 and May 2009. In South Asia six out of eight economies reformed," the World Bank said in a statement.

The report said Sri Lanka had strengthened access to credit information in a bid to expand access to finance. A new system consolidation process at the private sector credit bureau had been implemented allowing credit data to be submitted by all shareholder lending institutions without any reporting threshold.

It noted that the volume of registry data had grown 10-fold relative to the same period in 2007.

However, the Doing Business 2010 report said the government had made getting Construction permits ‘more difficult’ by adding fees and introducing a new procedure.

There are 22 procedures to go through when seeking construction permits and takes about 214 days the report points out.

Sri Lanka was ranked 97 out of 181 countries in the Doing Business 2009 report.

The report is complied annually to gauge the ease in which business can be carried out in countries by measuring the reforms that ease the regulatory burden of doing business.

The 2009 report indentified Sri Lanka as the leading reformer of business regulations in the South Asia Region.

"Sri Lanka, the top regional reformer, made it easier for businesses to obtain credit by strengthening the legal rights of creditors and enhancing the availability of credit information," the previous report said.

Sri Lanka moved down eight places in the current ranking.

The rankings are based on ten categories.

In the ease of starting a business Sri Lanka is ranked 41 down eight places from 33 held in the previous report.

In dealing with Construction permits Sri Lanka ranked 168 down, seven places.

In the areas of accessing credit and investor protection, Sri Lanka has moved three places in both to rank 71 and 73 respectively.

In the ease of cross border trade, Sri Lanka moved down three places to be ranked 65.

There is no change in the rank of 96 in employing workers (flexibility of labour laws) as well as in registering property (148), paying taxes (166), enforcing contracts (137) and closing a business (45).

Doing Business 2010 shows that Sri Lanka has about 62 taxes consuming 256 hours a year to administer and costing on average 63.7 percent of profits.

In the ease of enforcing contracts, Sri Lanka has 40 procedures to go through when filing a dispute up until a settlement is reached, consuming about 1,318 days for disputes to be settled. The report said it costs on average 22.8 percent of a claim.

In the case of employing workers, the report shows that Sri Lanka had no difficulty in hiring workers while the work-hour environment is perfectly flexible.

The difficulty in redundancy index is 60 (the index assigned values from 0 to 100 with higher values indicating more rigid regulations). The redundancy cost on average is 217 salary-weeks.

The latest report, Doing Business 2010, said the region’s most active reformer was Bangladesh.

Bangladesh (ranked 119) had introduced an online company registration system which cut the start-up time by nearly a month. Corporate taxes had also been slashed while an automated customs clearance system has expedited trade.

India (ranked 133) had introduced regulations reducing the time it takes to close down a business. The Doing Business 2010 report said India had ‘tremendous potential for drawing on home-grown practices to cut red-tape and streamline regulations’.

Nepal (ranked 123) had reduced fees from 6 percent to 4.5 percent of property values applicable for property transfers.

Pakistan (ranked 85 and the best ranked in South Asia) had reduced the start-up time for a business by four days which has also halved the cost for starting up a business.

Maldives (ranked 87) introduced regulations, which according to the report, made it more difficult to employ workers by increasing the inflexibility of its labour laws.

Bhutan (ranked 126) made no major reforms.

Afghanistan (ranked 160) made several reforms during the period of June 2008-May 2009: it simplified procedures to start-up a business, introduced a one-stop-shop company registry which handles registration and tax registration for a flat fee.

Afghanistan also made improvements in the areas of registering property and accessing credit. A new law was introduced for secured transactions that broadened the scope of assets that could be held as collateral which includes future assets.

In the overall ranking Singapore is ranked first followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong and China, United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Canada and Australia.

Top 10 Reformers

1 - Rwanda  

2 - Kyrgyz Republic 

3 - Macedonia, FYR

4 - Belarus

5 - United Arab Emirates

6 - Moldova

7 - Colombia 

8 - Tajikistan 

9 - Egypt