BEIJING - The
good news is that two reforms passed last year by
Beijing gave China enough juice to push it into
the No 9 spot of 178 economies when it comes to
global business regulatory reforms, according to a
recent report by the World Bank Group's
International Finance Corp (IFC) on "Doing
Business 2008".
China passed a new
bankruptcy law in 2006, and a property law this
year. The former protects creditors' interests by
giving them priority in obtaining the proceeds
from collateral. The latter puts
private property rights on an
equal footing with state property rights.
The property law has also expanded the
range of assets that can be used as collateral and
includes inventory, accounts receivable and future
assets. This means it will be easier for
enterprises to get loans and expand.
"In
market economies, inventory and accounts
receivable are very common pledges to banks for
credit," Michael Ipson, the IFC's principal
banking specialist in China, said at a press
conference in Beijing.
But while China got
into the Top 10 regulatory listing category in the
"Doing Business" report, the bad news is that it
ranked very poorly in the "dealing with licenses"
category - just three spots from the bottom at
175.
It did improve when it comes to
"overall ease of doing business" - rising to 83,
nine spots higher than last year, but notably
behind regional business competitor Singapore (No
1), New Zealand (No 2), the United States (No 3)
and Hong Kong (No 4).
"While there's room
for improvement, China is making progress in
improving business conditions," Ipson said.
And it has performed well in the "contract
enforcement" category, ranking 20th, report
co-author Justin Yap said. That means China has
progressed in settling contract enforcement cases,
IFC investment official Wang Lihong said.
Meanwhile, a senior economist with the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that China's
official statistics have improved over the past 25
years.
The remark was made by Nishnu Pant,
assistant chief economist of the Manila-based ADB,
during a recent speech to mark the release of an
ADB report designed to advise China's National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on how to collect
statistics about the service sector.
China's rapid economic growth in recent
years has ignited heated disputes over the
accuracy of its official statistics.
Pant
said a recent ADB survey on the country's
industrial and service sectors, however, do not
support allegations by some economists that
China's estimates of growth in gross domestic
product (GDP) have been exaggerated.
The
output and growth of the service sector could have
been underestimated in the official statistics,
Pant claimed.
He said the country is
gradually improving its weaknesses in collecting
statistics of the service sector, as the NBS and
its local departments have stepped up efforts in
this field.
Pant advised the country's
national and local statistics collectors to set up
a scientific sampling survey system covering all
types of enterprises in the service sector,
including incorporated companies and individually
owned businesses.
But Pant also said a
recent pilot survey in Beijing under the
supervision of the ADB indicated that statistics
from the service sector could be improved, and the
pilot survey already marked an important step of
NBS toward data collection according to
international practice.
"There is still a
gap between China and developed countries in terms
of the accuracy of the national accounts," said
Peng Zhilong, a senior NBS official. "We will keep
improving the estimation of our national economy,
bringing it up to the international standards."
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
