Malaysia can make further improvements in the area of starting a business despite the six reforms carried out towards it over the last 15 years, said the World Bank.

Malaysia country manager Faris Hadad-Zervos said as the government continued to strengthen the business regulatory framework, it was important to focus on this area, especially where small and medium firms were facing difficulties.

“Malaysia has eased new business registrations by establishing a one-stop shop service and streamlining the registration process through the introduction of e-lodgement.

“In doing so, the time needed to register a new business has more than halved from 36 days 15 years ago to 18 (days) now, while the cost has been reduced from 33 percent of income per capita to five percent today,” he told reporters after launching the World Bank Group’s latest Doing Business report here today.

The Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs, finds that reforms of the past year were adopted in the areas of getting credit, trading across borders and protecting minority investors.

The report also said that Malaysia continued to improve its business climate for local entrepreneurs in enacting three business reforms during the past year.

In improving access to credit, for example, Hadad-Zervos (photo) said the country had established a modern collateral registry.

In addition, Malaysia made importing and exporting easier by improving the infrastructure, equipment and facilities at Port Klang, which triggered a reduction on the border compliance time for both, he added.

Among others, the report launched today revealed that Malaysia remained in the top 25 among 190 global economies.

However, the ranking also showed a marginal fall to 24th position from the 23rd spot attained last year.

The World Bank report is the 15th in a series of annual reports measuring regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business.

Over the past 15 years, Malaysia has implemented 23 reforms towards improving business regulations, much higher than the per-country average of 15 in East Asia and the Pacific regions.

- Bernama