Overview

In the late 1990s, the Belarusian government set out to streamline the nation’s onerous property registration system. To this end, a “one-stop shop” was created to help make Belarus’ property registration system one of the most efficient and sophisticated in the world. Once reforms were completed in 2007, Belarus moved up in the global Doing Business rankings. Specifically, on the ease of registering property, Belarus moved from 94th position in Doing Business 2008 to an impressive 14th in Doing Business 2009. This case study tells the story of a successful reform in post-Soviet Belarus.

Main Findings

• In May 2006, a new agency called the State Property Committee centralized state policy in the field of land relations, geodesy, cartography, state property registration, rights on property, and property transactions.
• Once reforms were implemented and the one-stop shop was launched, the process of registering property in Minsk became highly efficient: It took, on average, only 21 days and 4 steps, according to Doing Business 2009.
• In sum, Belarus cut 3 procedures and 210 days from the property-registration process.