Economies of the Europe and Central Asia region place among the top improvers in the World Bank Group’s ease of doing business report.

A total of 57 business reforms were carried out by the region’s economies in the past year, finds Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, released today.

This year, Armenia is ranked 38 among 190 economies in Doing Business report 2017 and is 5 points up from last year’s Doing Business 2016 rank 43 (recalculated based on methodology changes and addition of one economy, Somalia). In Doing Business 2017, Armenia also shows 1.47 percentage points’ improvement in distance to frontier score –73.63 compared to the previous year’s 72.16 percentage points.

Armenia made it easier to do business in two areas measured by the report, including Getting Credit and Enforcing Contracts.  Specifically, Armenia strengthened access to credit by adopting a new law on secured transactions that establishes a modern and centralized collateral registry, and improved its credit information system by adopting a new law on personal data protection.

Armenia also made enforcing contracts easier by introducing a consolidated chapter regulating voluntary mediation and by establishing financial incentives for the parties to attempt mediation.

Four of the region’s economies, Kazakhstan (ranked 35^th in DB17), Belarus (ranked 37^th), Serbia (ranked 47^th) and Georgia (ranked 16^th),place among this year’s top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken. For a second consecutive year, Kazakhstan, with seven business reforms, led the world in the number of reforms implemented, together with Indonesia. In the region, Georgia and Belarus followed with five and four reforms, respectively. For example, Georgia strengthened minority investor protections by increasing shareholder rights and role in major corporate decisions and by clarifying ownership and control structures.

The top ranked economy in the region is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with a global ranking of 10. Thanks to past reforms it now takes an entrepreneur in FYR Macedonia only two days to start a business, which is significantly less than the regional average of 10 days.