Overview

Since 2004 Doing Business has tracked regulatory reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business in the world’s economies. Doing Business 2006, the third report in the series, found that Eastern European nations were aggressively courting entrepreneurs with far-reaching reforms to streamline business regulations and taxes, but African and Middle Eastern nations with high youth unemployment rates continued to thwart small and medium businesses with heavy legal burdens and piecemeal reforms.

Main findings

• Every country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia improved at least one aspect of the business environment.
• Overall, European nations were the most active in enacting reforms. 
• The top 12 reformers in the past year, in order, were Serbia and Montenegro, Georgia, Vietnam, Slovakia, Germany, Egypt, Finland, Romania, Latvia, Pakistan, Rwanda, and the Netherlands.