Serbia climbs to 47th place of World Bank's Doing Business list

Serbia jumped from 59th to 47th place at this year's World Bank's Doing Business list, it was announced at the first public presentation of this year's report here on Wednesday.

"This is confirmation coming from those who plan to create new jobs and open new companies based on reforms that we make and laws that we introduce -- these people assessed that we made progress and improved the investment climate," Serbian deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said, revealing that Serbia also ranked among the top 10 countries which had made reforms in this area in the past year.

She added that Serbia would continue working hard to rank among the top 20 countries on this list as soon as possible.

She said the government planned to improve several areas that will reflect on the ranking. These improvements are related to access to electricity, changes in cadastre, further reform of the taxation system, and protection of minority shareholders.

The country already made efforts to reform areas of planning and construction, electronic taxation and construction permits.

Last year, Serbia made an even bigger progress on the list when it moved from 91st to 59th place in the ranking of 189 economies across the world according to the ease of doing business.

Among countries of the region, Macedonia ranked 10th, Slovenia, 30th, Romania, 36th, Bulgaria, 39th, Hungary, 41st, Croatia, 43rd, Montenegro, 51st, Albania, 58th, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 81st. Enditem