World Bank Ranks Korea Fourth Among Best Countries To Do Business; Report Leaves Local Entrepreneurs Puzzled
On Wednesday, the annual "Doing Business" report by the World Bank revealed that South Korea ranks fourth out of 189 countries in the best countries to do business, surpassing top developed countries, including Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S., reported The Chosun Ilbo.
Ahead of South Korea is Singapore in the top spot, followed by New Zealand and Denmark.
However, the report is not well accepted by most entrepreneurs.
"If Korea is the fourth best place in the world to do business, then why aren't multinationals rushing to set up operations here?" asked an executive of a major firm.
Last year on Dec. 14, Forbes released their own "Best Countries for Business" list where South Korea was ranked 32nd, with Denmark, Hong Kong and New Zealand placed on the top three spots respectively.
According to Forbes, South Korea's high-tech industrialized economy has grown impressively over the past four decades. In the 1960s, the country was among the poorer nations in the world - at par with Africa and Asia's poorer countries - but in 2004, South Korea has emerged to become among the nations with imposing economies and took the 12th spot in the world's largest economies.
South Korea suffered a few financial crises in between where it learned to adopt economic reforms, including being more welcoming to imports and foreign investments.
The World Bank's "Doing Business" report evaluates mostly the infrastructure of countries, which is imperative in a business' potential. South Korea has greatly excelled in some of the World Bank's 10-point list of criteria, including construction permit, registering property, enforcing contracts and getting electricity.
The evaluation excluded South Korea's weak corporate facet which is labor relations.
"The most common complaints among domestic and foreign businesspeople are frequent strikes by unions and red tape," said Kim Dong Wook at the Korea Employers Federation, "like regulations that ban hotels within a few hundred meters from a school, but the World Bank's evaluation did not reflect any of these factors, so it's difficult to take the ranking seriously."