GETTING credit has become easier among Pacific businesses in the past year, according to the 'Doing Business' report launched today. The Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea strengthened institutions and systems to give entrepreneurs greater access to finance. Timor-Leste, Tonga and Samoa also continued to pick up the pace of business reform with improvements in the areas of enforcing contracts, paying taxes and registering property.

Doing Business 2011: Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs, the eighth in a series of reports measuring the ease of doing business in 183 economies, shows that world-wide it is easiest for firms to do business in Singapore, Hong Kong SAR China, and New Zealand. Vanuatu, at rank 60, is the top performing country in the Pacific region.

The Marshall Islands improved business regulations most among Pacific nations in the last year, moving up 15 places to 108, by strengthening its legal framework to facilitate access to finance with a new secured transactions law. The law establishes a collateral registry and broadens the range of assets that can be used as collateral. Solomon Islands also passed a new secured transactions law and established a collateral registry, improving its ranking by 10 places to 96. In Papua New Guinea, a new private credit bureau that makes it easier for lenders to access credit information helped to improve the country's ranking by five places to 103.

Samoa used new information technologies to become the most improved economy globally in the area of property registration. Samoa reduced the time required to register property by four months by shifting from a deed system to a title system and fully computerizing its land registry.

"New technology underpins regulatory best practice around the world," said Janamitra Devan, Vice President for Financial and Private Sector Development at the World Bank Group. "Technology makes compliance easier, less costly, and more transparent."

Changes in enforcing contracts saw Timor-Leste increase court efficiency by training and appointing new judges and passing a new civil procedure code.

Tonga simplified the payment of taxes by replacing a two-tier system with a 25 percent corporate income tax rate for both domestic and foreign companies, and introducing tax incentives with a broad-based capital allowance system to replace tax holidays and other tax concessions.

About the Doing Business report series

Doing Business analyzes regulations that apply to an economy's businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and closing a business. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors. For example, it does not measure security, macroeconomic stability, corruption, skill level, or the strength of financial systems. Its findings have stimulated policy debates in more than 80 economies and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies. World Bank Group, 04/11/10.