In the World Bank’s recently published 2016 Doing Business report, the Central Asian countries enjoyed a significant boost in their respective rankings.

What’s more, Colibri Law Firm was pleased to be able to assist the World Bank in their research into the commercial landscape and regulatory developments within the Central Asian region. As a result, the firm is credited as a regional contributor to the 2016 Doing Business report.

Within the region, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan all either rose in the rankings or held their exist- ing position. Out of the 189 countries included in the report, Kazakhstan rose 12 places to take 41st place, Uzbekistan rose 16 places to take 87th place and Tajikistan rose 6 places to take 132nd place. Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan held its strong 2015 position of 67th place. Turkmenistan is not yet included within the countries assessed and ranked as part of the World Bank’s annual report.

As detailed in this year’s report, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan implemented a total of 14 reforms that fall within 9 out of the 10 indicators included in the Ease of Doing Business rankings. In addition, Uzbeki- stan and Kazakhstan were included among the top 10 over- all global improvers.

Kazakhstan came away with 41st place and implemented the most reforms globally. Among the most notable were reforms that involved eliminating the company seal and registration fee and decreasing registration time, increas- ing the transparency of related-party transactions, provid- ing more ways of collecting evidence for trials, and limiting the possibilities for changing shareholders’ rights.

Uzbekistan rose to 87th place and has made starting a business easier by introducing an online one-stop shop and streamlining registration procedures. The country also adopted new laws on secured transactions that allow a general description of assets to be granted as collateral, and established a modern, unified, notice-based collateral registry. In addition, Uzbekistan made transferring property easier by eliminating the requirement to provide several different non-encumbrance certificates.

Kyrgyzstan placed 67th, and made the process of property registration easier by introducing a widely-used online pro- cedure for obtaining non-encumbrance certificates, as well as by improving access to credit information.

Tajikistan moved up to take 132th place. This improvement was partly due to reforms in tax payments and foreign trade through the introduction of an electronic filing system for customs declarations.

As highlighted by Saroj Kumar Jha, World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia, “this was a very strong year for Central Asia as every country in the region moved closer to the frontier of good regulatory practice by introducing two or more reforms.” He went on to comment that “[to start a business] it takes on average 8 days in the region - 5 in Kazakhstan, 6.5 days in Uzbekistan, 10 in Kyrgyz Republic, and 11 in Tajikistan - which compares with average among high-income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies.”

However, the report highlights areas where the countries of Central Asia need to improve, particularly when it comes to the new indicators added for the 2016 rankings measuring the quality of regulation. Central Asian countries should focus particularly on three of the four new quality indexes: quality of land administration, reliability of supply, transpar- ency of energy, and quality of judicial processes. It is in these areas that any progress made could significantly boost the ease of doing business within the jurisdictions.

The Doing Business project was launched in 2002 and aims to provide “an objective basis for understanding and improving the regulatory environment for business around the world” in order to encourage economies to work towards improving the efficiency of their regulations.

This year, 189 countries were assessed in line with 11 indi- cator sets. According to the World Bank, these indicators measure regulations for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering prop- erty, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.