Media

What leaders are saying about Doing Business

Timothy Besley

Professor, London School of Economics

"The [Doing Business] data are quite unique: there is no other comparable project in terms of scale or scope."

Dr. Charles Collyns

Chief Economist, Institute of International Finance

"The Doing Business report is a really valuable tool. It provides concrete, quantifiable metrics that can be used for cross-country comparisons."

Peter Hoijtink

The Strategy and Associate Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

"Companies are faced with a complex dilemma when determining which markets they should enter. Although detailed on the -ground study of each market is ultimately necessary, a good way to start is by studying a market’s wealth (measured by GDP per capita) and institutional quality (measured by the World Bank’s Doing Business Index)."

Dr. Raul Hopkins

Professor Pontificia Universidad Católica - Perú, CENTRUM Católica Graduate Business School, Lima, Peru

"Doing Business has encouraged the design of regulatory reforms in developing countries. The report is widely known and used by academics, legislators, politicians, development experts, journalists and the business community."

Simon Johnson

Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management

"The Doing Business database is a very useful dashboard that indicates issues that need more attention from any policymaker who would like to make it easier to do business in his or her country."

Hon. Steven Joyce

New Zealand Regulatory Reform Minister

"This report is regarded highly around the world."

Dr. Jim Yong Kim

World Bank Group President

"The World Bank Group's work on business climate development, including the Doing Business report, is core to our mission of ending poverty, and in fact we expect it to grow. Our client countries are demanding it, because there is broad consensus about the need for jobs to eliminate poverty and boost growth."

Lize Louw

Director, Norton Rose Fulbright Law firm (Johannesburg office)

"The World Bank’s Doing Business report is eagerly awaited each year as an indicator of the ease of Doing Business in various economies around the world."

Ana Palacio

Member of the Spanish Council of State

"Doing Business is one of the star projects of the World Bank and has motivated more than 2,000 reforms in the last 10 years, and over time, has proven to be a valuable tool for policy makers in developing economies to stimulate reform and encourage investment."

Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne

Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

"When the World Bank’s Doing Business report first came out (in 2003), we at the State Department welcomed it. The report provided information on a number of micro reforms that were essential to attract investment, to allow jobs to be created through small and medium size enterprises, and it provided all that information to a lot of different people in one place. It gave [information] to international businesses, and to governments like ourselves holding dialogues with governments around the world, and to people within each of those countries. It really empowered them and empowered the media in those countries to go out and say ‘Why aren’t we fixing this? Why are we this way? Why have we let this go on?’ And we saw that happen in each of the years as this report went forward. It was a very powerful motivator [for reforms]."