82780 Economy Profile: Bhutan Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 2 © 2013 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org All rights reserved. 1 2 3 4 15 14 13 12 A copublication of The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. Note that The World Bank does not necessarily own each component of the content included in the work. The World Bank therefore does not warrant that the use of the content contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. 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Cover design: The Word Express Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 3 CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4 The business environment .......................................................................................................... 5 Starting a business ..................................................................................................................... 14 Dealing with construction permits ........................................................................................... 23 Getting electricity ....................................................................................................................... 33 Registering property .................................................................................................................. 40 Getting credit .............................................................................................................................. 48 Protecting investors ................................................................................................................... 55 Paying taxes ................................................................................................................................ 64 Trading across borders .............................................................................................................. 71 Enforcing contracts .................................................................................................................... 79 Resolving insolvency .................................................................................................................. 89 Employing workers .................................................................................................................... 92 Data notes ................................................................................................................................... 99 Resources on the Doing Business website ............................................................................ 105 Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 4 INTRODUCTION Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to January–December 2012). medium-size business when complying with relevant The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other regulations. It measures and tracks changes in areas important to business—such as an economy’s regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a proximity to large markets, the quality of its business: starting a business, dealing with construction infrastructure services (other than those related to permits, getting electricity, registering property, trading across borders and getting electricity), the getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, security of property from theft and looting, the trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving transparency of government procurement, insolvency and employing workers. macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents of institutions—are not directly studied by Doing quantitative indicators on business regulations and the Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of protection of property rights that can be compared business, generally a local limited liability company across 189 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, operating in the largest business city. Because over time. The data set covers 47 economies in Sub- standard assumptions are used in the data collection, Saharan Africa, 33 in Latin America and the Caribbean, comparisons and benchmarks are valid across 25 in East Asia and the Pacific, 25 in Eastern Europe economies. The data not only highlight the extent of and Central Asia, 20 in the Middle East and North obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the Africa and 8 in South Asia, as well as 31 OECD high- source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in income economies. The indicators are used to analyze designing regulatory reform. economic outcomes and identify what reforms have More information is available in the full report. Doing worked, where and why. Business 2014 presents the indicators, analyzes their This economy profile presents the Doing Business relationship with economic outcomes and presents indicators for Bhutan. To allow useful comparison, it business regulatory reforms. The data, along with also provides data for other selected economies information on ordering Doing Business 2014, are (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in available on the Doing Business website at this report are current as of June 1, 2013 (except for http://www.doingbusiness.org. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 5 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers trying to improve their economy’s regulatory environment for business, a good place to ECONOMY OVERVIEW start is to find out how it compares with the regulatory environment in other economies. Doing Business provides an aggregate ranking on the ease of doing Region: South Asia business based on indicator sets that measure and benchmark regulations applying to domestic small to Income category: Lower middle income medium-size businesses through their life cycle. Economies are ranked from 1 to 189 by the ease of Population: 741,822 doing business index. For each economy the index is calculated as the ranking on the simple average of its GNI per capita (US$): 2,420 percentile rankings on each of the 10 topics included in the index in Doing Business 2014: starting a business, DB2014 rank: 141 dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting DB2013 rank: 146* investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, Change in rank: 5 enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. The ranking on each topic is the simple average of the DB 2014 DTF: 55.48 percentile rankings on its component indicators (see the data notes for more details). The employing workers DB 2013 DTF: 54.67 indicators are not included in this year’s aggregate ease of doing business ranking, but the data are presented Change in DTF: 0.78 in this year’s economy profile. The aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business * DB2013 ranking shown is not last year’s published benchmarks each economy’s performance on the ranking but a comparable ranking for DB2013 that indicators against that of all other economies in the captures the effects of such factors as data Doing Business sample (figure 1.1). While this ranking corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, tells much about the business environment in an Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the economy, it does not tell the whole story. The ranking on sample this year. See the data notes for sources and the ease of doing business, and the underlying definitions. indicators, do not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors or that affect the competitiveness of the economy. Still, a high ranking does mean that the government has created a regulatory environment conducive to operating a business. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 6 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.1 Where economies stand in the global ranking on the ease of doing business Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 7 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT For policy makers, knowing where their economy relative to the regional average (figure 1.2). The stands in the aggregate ranking on the ease of economy’s rankings on the topics included in the doing business is useful. Also useful is to know how ease of doing business index provide another it ranks relative to comparator economies and perspective (figure 1.3). Figure 1.2 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of doing business Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 8 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.3 How Bhutan ranks on Doing Business topics Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 9 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Just as the overall ranking on the ease of doing business Doing Business introduced the distance to frontier tells only part of the story, so do changes in that ranking. measure. This measure shows how far on average an Yearly movements in rankings can provide some indication economy is from the best performance achieved by any of changes in an economy’s regulatory environment for economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005, firms, but they are always relative. except for the getting electricity indicators, which were introduced in 2009. Moreover, year-to-year changes in the overall rankings do not reflect how the business regulatory environment in an Comparing the measure for an economy at 2 points in economy has changed over time—or how it has changed time allows users to assess how much the economy’s in different areas. To aid in assessing such changes, regulatory environment as measured by Doing Business has changed over time—how far it has moved toward (or away from) the most efficient practices and strongest regulations in areas covered by Doing Business (figure 1.4). Figure 1.4 How far has Bhutan come in the areas measured by Doing Business? Note: The distance to frontier measure shows how far on average an economy is from the best performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005, except for the getting electricity indicators, which were introduced in 2009. The measure is normalized to range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the best performance (the frontier). The overall distance to frontier is the average of the distance to frontier in the first 9 indicator sets shown in the figure and does not include getting electricity. Data on the overall distance to frontier including getting electricity is available at http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/distance-to-frontier. See the data notes for more details on the distance to frontier measure. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 10 THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The absolute values of the indicators tell another part business regulation—such as a regulatory process that of the story (table 1.1). The indicators, on their own or can be completed with a small number of procedures in comparison with the indicators of a good practice in a few days and at a low cost. Comparison of the economy or those of comparator economies in the economy’s indicators today with those in the previous region, may reveal bottlenecks reflected in large year may show where substantial bottlenecks persist — numbers of procedures, long delays or high costs. Or and where they are diminishing. they may reveal unexpected strengths in an area of Table 1.1 Summary of Doing Business indicators for Bhutan Best performer globally Maldives DB2014 Thailand DB2014 Pakistan DB2014 Bhutan DB2014 Bhutan DB2013 Indicator Nepal DB2014 China DB2014 India DB2014 DB2014 Starting a Business 86 94 158 179 71 97 105 91 New Zealand (1) (rank) Procedures (number) 8 8 13 12 5 7 10 4 New Zealand (1)* Time (days) 32.0 36.0 33.0 27.0 9.0 17.0 21.0 27.5 New Zealand (0.5) Cost (% of income per 5.0 6.0 2.0 47.3 6.2 34.6 10.4 6.7 Slovenia (0.0) capita) Paid-in Min. Capital (% 0.0 0.0 78.2 124.4 2.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 112 Economies (0.0)* of income per capita) Dealing with Hong Kong SAR, Construction Permits 132 131 185 182 18 105 109 14 China (1) (rank) Hong Kong SAR, Procedures (number) 22 22 25 35 8 13 11 8 China (6) Time (days) 150.0 150.0 270.0 168.0 174.0 115.0 222.0 157.0 Singapore (26.0) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 11 Best performer globally Maldives DB2014 Thailand DB2014 Pakistan DB2014 Bhutan DB2014 Bhutan DB2013 Indicator Nepal DB2014 China DB2014 India DB2014 DB2014 Cost (% of income per 77.6 92.7 344.7 2,640.4 8.6 512.7 190.4 8.3 Qatar (1.1) capita) Getting Electricity 91 93 119 111 131 98 175 12 Iceland (1) (rank) Procedures (number) 5 5 5 7 6 5 6 4 10 Economies (3)* Time (days) 82 82 145 67 108 70 206 35 Germany (17) Cost (% of income per 693.2 828.1 499.2 230.7 398.1 1,380.8 1,600.9 67.3 Japan (0.0) capita) Registering Property 86 84 48 92 161 24 125 29 Georgia (1) (rank) Procedures (number) 3 3 4 5 6 3 6 2 4 Economies (1)* Time (days) 92.0 92.0 29.0 44.0 57.0 5.0 50.0 2.0 New Zealand (1.0)* Cost (% of property 5.0 5.0 3.6 7.0 16.2 4.8 7.7 6.3 5 Economies (0.0)* value) Getting Credit (rank) 109 126 73 28 109 55 73 73 Malaysia (1)* Strength of legal rights 3 3 5 8 4 8 6 5 10 Economies (10)* index (0-10) Depth of credit 5 4 5 5 4 3 4 5 31 Economies (6)* information index (0-6) Public registry coverage 15.6 13.5 30.2 0.0 17.5 0.0 8.0 0.0 Portugal (100.0)* (% of adults) Private bureau 0.0 0.0 0.0 19.8 0.0 0.7 2.1 49.2 22 Economies (100.0)* coverage (% of adults) Protecting Investors 147 147 98 34 80 80 34 12 New Zealand (1) (rank) Extent of disclosure 4 4 10 7 0 6 6 10 10 Economies (10)* Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 12 Best performer globally Maldives DB2014 Thailand DB2014 Pakistan DB2014 Bhutan DB2014 Bhutan DB2013 Indicator Nepal DB2014 China DB2014 India DB2014 DB2014 index (0-10) Extent of director 3 3 1 4 8 1 6 7 Cambodia (10) liability index (0-10) Ease of shareholder 4 4 4 8 8 9 7 6 3 Economies (10)* suits index (0-10) Strength of investor 3.7 3.7 5.0 6.3 5.3 5.3 6.3 7.7 New Zealand (9.7) protection index (0-10) United Arab Emirates Paying Taxes (rank) 104 107 120 158 115 126 166 70 (1) Payments (number per Hong Kong SAR, 19 19 7 33 30 34 47 22 year) China (3)* United Arab Emirates Time (hours per year) 274 274 318 243 413 326 577 264 (12) Trading Across Borders 172 174 74 132 138 177 91 24 Singapore (1) (rank) Documents to export 9 9 8 9 7 11 8 5 Ireland (2)* (number) Time to export (days) 38 38 21 16 21 42 21 14 5 Economies (6)* Cost to export (US$ per 2,230 2,230 620 1,170 1,625 2,295 660 595 Malaysia (450) container) Documents to import 12 12 5 11 9 11 8 5 Ireland (2)* (number) Time to import (days) 38 38 24 20 22 39 18 13 Singapore (4) Cost to import (US$ per 2,330 2,330 615 1,250 1,610 2,400 725 760 Singapore (440) container) Enforcing Contracts 37 37 19 186 90 139 158 22 Luxembourg (1) (rank) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 13 Best performer globally Maldives DB2014 Thailand DB2014 Pakistan DB2014 Bhutan DB2014 Bhutan DB2013 Indicator Nepal DB2014 China DB2014 India DB2014 DB2014 Time (days) 225 225 406 1,420 665 910 976 440 Singapore (150) Cost (% of claim) 0.1 0.1 11.1 39.6 16.5 26.8 23.8 15.0 Bhutan (0.1) Procedures (number) 47 47 37 46 41 39 46 36 Singapore (21)* Resolving Insolvency 189 189 78 121 40 125 71 58 Japan (1) (rank) no no Time (years) 1.7 4.3 1.5 5.0 2.8 2.7 Ireland (0.4) practice practice no no Cost (% of estate) 22 9 4 9 4 36 Norway (1) practice practice Outcome (0 as no no piecemeal sale and 1 as 0 0 0 0 0 1 practice practice going concern) Recovery rate (cents on 0.0 0.0 36.0 25.6 50.4 24.5 37.7 42.2 Japan (92.8) the dollar) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see the data notes. * Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. A number shown in place of an economy’s name indicates the number of economies that share the top ranking on the indicator. For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 14 STARTING A BUSINESS Formal registration of companies has many WHAT THE STARTING A BUSINESS immediate benefits for the companies and for business owners and employees. Legal entities can INDICATORS MEASURE outlive their founders. Resources are pooled as several shareholders join forces to start a company. Procedures to legally start and operate a Formally registered companies have access to company (number) services and institutions from courts to banks as Preregistration (for example, name well as to new markets. And their employees can verification or reservation, notarization) benefit from protections provided by the law. An additional benefit comes with limited liability Registration in the economy’s largest companies. These limit the financial liability of business city company owners to their investments, so personal Postregistration (for example, social security assets of the owners are not put at risk. Where registration, company seal) governments make registration easy, more entrepreneurs start businesses in the formal sector, Time required to complete each procedure creating more good jobs and generating more (calendar days) revenue for the government. Does not include time spent gathering What do the indicators cover? information Doing Business measures the ease of starting a Each procedure starts on a separate day (2 business in an economy by recording all procedures cannot start on the same day). procedures officially required or commonly done in Procedures that can be fully completed practice by an entrepreneur to start up and online are an exception to this rule. formally operate an industrial or commercial Procedure completed once final document is business—as well as the time and cost required to received complete these procedures. It also records the paid-in minimum capital that companies must No prior contact with officials deposit before registration (or within 3 months). Cost required to complete each procedure The ranking on the ease of starting a business is (% of income per capita) the simple average of the percentile rankings on the 4 component indicators: procedures, time, cost Official costs only, no bribes and paid-in minimum capital requirement. No professional fees unless services required To make the data comparable across economies, by law Doing Business uses several assumptions about the Paid-in minimum capital (% of income business and the procedures. It assumes that all per capita) information is readily available to the entrepreneur and that there has been no prior contact with Deposited in a bank or with a notary before officials. It also assumes that the entrepreneur will registration (or within 3 months) pay no bribes. And it assumes that the business:  Has a start-up capital of 10 times income per  Is a limited liability company, located in the capita. largest business city and is 100% domestically  Has a turnover of at least 100 times income per owned. capita.  Has between 10 and 50 employees.  Does not qualify for any special benefits.  Conducts general commercial or industrial  Does not own real estate. activities. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 15 STARTING A BUSINESS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to start a business in Bhutan? days, costs 5.0% of income per capita and requires According to data collected by Doing Business, starting paid-in minimum capital of 0.0% of income per capita a business there requires 8 procedures, takes 32.0 (figure 2.1). Figure 2.1 What it takes to start a business in Bhutan Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita): 0.0 Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the starting a business indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 16 STARTING A BUSINESS Globally, Bhutan stands at 86 in the ranking of 189 regional average ranking provide other useful economies on the ease of starting a business (figure information for assessing how easy it is for an 2.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the entrepreneur in Bhutan to start a business. Figure 2.2 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of starting a business Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 17 STARTING A BUSINESS What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over 2.3) can help show what is possible in making it easier time have had the best performance regionally or to start a business. And changes in regional averages globally on the procedures, time, cost or paid-in can show where Bhutan is keeping up —and where it is minimum capital required to start a business (figure falling behind. Figure 2.3 Has starting a business become easier over time? Procedures (number) Time (days) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 18 STARTING A BUSINESS Cost (% of income per capita) Paid-in minimum capital (% of income per capita) Note: Ninety economies globally have no paid-in minimum capital requirement. DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 19 STARTING A BUSINESS Economies around the world have taken steps making greater firm satisfaction and savings and more it easier to start a business—streamlining procedures registered businesses, financial resources and job by setting up a one-stop shop, making procedures opportunities. simpler or faster by introducing technology and What business registration reforms has Doing Business reducing or eliminating minimum capital requirements. recorded in Bhutan (table 2.1)? Many have undertaken business registration reforms in stages—and they often are part of a larger regulatory reform program. Among the benefits have been Table 2.1 How has Bhutan made starting a business easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Bhutan eased the process of starting a business by making its DB2012 criminal records search electronic and making the rubber company stamps available on the local market. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Bhutan made starting a business easier by reducing the time DB2014 required to obtain the security clearance certificate. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 20 STARTING A BUSINESS What are the details? Underlying the indicators shown in this chapter for STANDARDIZED COMPANY Bhutan is a set of specific procedures —the bureaucratic and legal steps that an entrepreneur must complete to incorporate and register a new City: Thimphu firm. These are identified by Doing Business through collaboration with relevant local Legal Form: Limited Liability Company professionals and the study of laws, regulations and Paid in Minimum Capital Requirement: None publicly available information on business entry in that economy. Following is a detailed summary of Start-up Capital: 10 times GNI per capita those procedures, along with the associated time and cost. These procedures are those that apply to a company matching the standard assumptions (the “standardized company”) used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators measure). Summary of procedures for starting a business in Bhutan—and the time and cost Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Obtain a Security Clearance Certificate (SCC) from the Royal Bhutan Police In June 2011, The Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs launched the Security Clearance Service: an online system to issue Security Clearance Certificates (SCC). The system was developed in coordination with the 3 days no charge 1 Department of Information Technology and Telecom at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in response to the directives issued by the Bhutan Cabinet on March 27, 2009. The security clearance certificate is valid for one year. Submit project proposal to the Regional Trade and Industry Office An application form along with the project proposal is submitted to the Industrial Department Division (IDD) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In the case of small and cottage-scale companies with startup capital of up to BTN 10 million, the Regional Trade & Industry Office of the 4 days for Department of Cottage and Small Industries reviews the project activities not proposal. Approval is required to verify that the proposed industrial requiring sector project is in line with industrial development plans of the country, and clearance; up to 3 BTN 600 2 for issuance of the industrial license. months for activities requiring If sector clearance is required, the Department of Industry sends a letter to the relevant sectors requesting such clearance for the proposed sector clearance project. However, for a list of 17 "delegated" activities, medium and large scale industries receive environmental clearance from the Environmental Unit under the Department of Industry, while small and cottage scale industries receive environmental clearance from the Regional Trade & Industry Offices. Otherwise, environmental clearance Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 21 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete shall be obtained from the National Environment Commission (NEC) Secretariat. Register at the Office of the Registrar Company registration is subject to the Companies Act of the Kingdom of Bhutan 2000. Upon applying for registration, the entrepreneur must present his/her original citizenship identity card and submit the following documents to the Companies Registry Division, Department of Industry: 1. Articles of Incorporation 2. Company name clearance form 3. Consent to act as Directors of the company form 4. Declaration of compliance form signed by the company directors 5. Sector clearance from the concerned sectors if applicable 6. Name and Address of the first Chief Executive Officer of the company 7. Security Clearance Certificates of company directors 3 3 days BTN 1,500 The company receives its certificate of incorporation. Once the documents are processed, the Registrar of Companies issues the certificate of registration. The registered company may choose to publish a notice in the Kuensel weekly newspaper announcing its registration. According to Schedule 4 of the Companies Act of the Kingdom of Bhutan, registration fees are as follows: - For an authorized share capital up to BTN 1 million: BTN 1,000 - For an authorized share capital between BTN 1 million and BTN 2 million: BTN 1,500 - For authorized share capital above BTN 2 million: BTN 2,000 Obtain a business license from the Regional Trade and Industry Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs To apply for the license, the following documents must be submitted: 1- Application Form for Industrial License (Form III) 2- Citizenship ID Card 3- Sector Clearance (depending on activity) 4- Location Clearance obtained from the Thimphu City Corporation (Dzongkhag or Thromde) 4 5- Valid Security Clearance Certificate 2 days BTN 3,100 6- Two recent passport size photographs 7- Project Approval from the Department of Cottage & Small Industry for cottage and small industries and from the Department of industry for medium and large scale industries. License fees are as follows: - For cottage scale industries: BTN 1,600 - For small scale industries: BTN 3,100 - For medium scale industries: BTN 6,100 Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 22 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete - For large scale industries: BTN 12,100 Since July 1, 2005, applications forms for trade and industrial licenses can be downloaded from the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s website (www.mti.gov.bt). Photocopies of application forms are accepted. Register for taxes and obtain the Business Identifier Code (BIC) Number Every company must register for corporate income tax. A Business 1 - 3 days no charge 5 Identification Code (BIC) is then assigned to the company. This BIC number must be presented to participate in public tenders and works. Make a company seal Companies must have a seal within 1 year of incorporation. This is Between BTN 500 6 1 day verified by the Registrar during the annual inspection. and BTN 1,200 * Open a bank account 1 day Under the Company Act 2000, a company bank account must be (simultaneously 7 no charge opened within a month of incorporation. with previous procedure) * File proof of opening a company bank account at the Office of the Registrar 1 day (simultaneously 8 no charge with previous procedure) * Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 23 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Regulation of construction is critical to protect the WHAT THE DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION public. But it needs to be efficient, to avoid PERMITS INDICATORS MEASURE excessive constraints on a sector that plays an important part in every economy. Where complying with building regulations is excessively costly in Procedures to legally build a warehouse time and money, many builders opt out. They may (number) pay bribes to pass inspections or simply build Submitting all relevant documents and illegally, leading to hazardous construction that obtaining all necessary clearances, licenses, puts public safety at risk. Where compliance is permits and certificates simple, straightforward and inexpensive, everyone Submitting all required notifications and is better off. receiving all necessary inspections What do the indicators cover? Obtaining utility connections for water, Doing Business records the procedures, time and sewerage and a land telephone line cost for a business in the construction industry to Registering the warehouse after its obtain all the necessary approvals to build a completion (if required for use as collateral or warehouse in the economy’s largest business city, for transfer of the warehouse) connect it to basic utilities and register the Time required to complete each procedure property so that it can be used as collateral or (calendar days) transferred to another entity. Does not include time spent gathering The ranking on the ease of dealing with information construction permits is the simple average of the Each procedure starts on a separate day. percentile rankings on its component indicators: Procedures that can be fully completed online procedures, time and cost. are an exception to this rule. To make the data comparable across economies, Procedure considered completed once final Doing Business uses several assumptions about the document is received business and the warehouse, including the utility connections. No prior contact with officials The business: Cost required to complete each procedure (% of income per capita)  Is a limited liability company operating in Official costs only, no bribes the construction business and located in the largest business city.  Will be connected to water, sewerage (sewage system, septic tank or their  Is domestically owned and operated. equivalent) and a fixed telephone line. The  Has 60 builders and other employees. connection to each utility network will be 10 The warehouse: meters (32 feet, 10 inches) long.  Is a new construction (there was no  Will be used for general storage, such as of previous construction on the land). books or stationery (not for goods requiring special conditions).  Has complete architectural and technical plans prepared by a licensed architect or  Will take 30 weeks to construct (excluding all engineer. delays due to administrative and regulatory requirements). Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 24 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to comply with the formalities to permits there requires 22 procedures, takes 150.0 days build a warehouse in Bhutan? According to data and costs 77.6% of income per capita (figure 3.1). collected by Doing Business, dealing with construction Figure 3.1 What it takes to comply with formalities to build a warehouse in Bhutan Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the dealing with construction permits indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 25 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Globally, Bhutan stands at 132 in the ranking of 189 other useful information for assessing how easy it is for economies on the ease of dealing with construction an entrepreneur in Bhutan to legally build a permits (figure 3.2). The rankings for comparator warehouse. economies and the regional average ranking provide Figure 3.2 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of dealing with construction permits Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 26 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over what is possible in making it easier to deal with time have had the best performance regionally or construction permits. And changes in regional globally on the procedures, time or cost required to averages can show where Bhutan is keeping up—and deal with construction permits (figure 3.3) help show where it is falling behind. Figure 3.3 Has dealing with construction permits become easier over time? Procedures (number) Time (days) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 27 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Cost (% of income per capita) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for D B2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see the data notes. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 28 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Smart regulation ensures that standards are met while building safety while keeping compliance costs making compliance easy and accessible to all. reasonable, governments around the world have Coherent and transparent rules, efficient processes and worked on consolidating permitting requirements. adequate allocation of resources are especially What construction permitting reforms has Doing important in sectors where safety is at stake. Business recorded in Bhutan (table 3.1)? Construction is one of them. In an effort to ensure Table 3.1 How has Bhutan made dealing with construction permits easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 29 DEALING WITH CONSTRUCTION PERMITS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Bhutan are based BUILDING A WAREHOUSE on a set of specific procedures—the steps that a company must complete to legally build a warehouse—identified by Doing Business through City : Thimphu information collected from experts in construction licensing, including architects, civil engineers, Estimated construction lawyers, construction firms, utility BTN 19,600,000 Warehouse Value : service providers and public officials who deal with building regulations. These procedures are those The procedures, along with the associated time and that apply to a company and structure matching cost, are summarized below. the standard assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in this chapter on what the indicators cover). Summary of procedures for dealing with construction permits in Bhutan —and the time and cost Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Request and obtain official site plan After a fee is paid, the official site plan is obtained from the survey 5 days BTN 100 1 section of the City Corporation. Purchase building construction application form BuildCo must purchase the building construction application form from the revenue section of the City Corporation. 2 Fee schedule for building construction application: 1 day BTN 600 • Application form: BTN 100.00 • Legal service fee (if required): BTN 500.00 Submit form to architectural section During stage 1 of the approval, the company must submit a duly completed form to the architectural section of the Thimphu Thromde, along with the drawing(s), the ownership certificate, and an official site plan. 3 90 days no charge During stage 2 the architectural section will undergo a planning check with the structural, electrical, sewerage, and water supply sections. Although this is an internal process carried out by the municipality, not the company, BuildCo must follow up to ensure progress. During stage 3, the architectural section submits the proposal to the Executive Secretary of the Thimphu Thromde with recommendations Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 30 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete and findings for final approval. As with stage 2, BuildCo must check progress on this internal municipal process. Obtain Construction Permits and request pre-construction inspection from the city corporation BuildCo must collect its building permit. A preconstruction site inspection must be requested in writing. Fee schedule for preconstruction inspection • Amenities fee: 1 day BTN 86,022 4 1. Residential and institutional building: BTN 30.00 per sq. m. 2. Commercial and industrial building: BTN 50.00 per sq. m. • Scrutiny fee: BTN 3,000.00 or BTN 16.14 per sq. m. (the greater of). On starting construction, the company notifies the City Corporation in writing. Receive pre-construction inspection On BuildCo’s request to the City Corporation’s building section, the building inspector conducts a site inspection. Thereafter, routine inspections occur every 3 weeks. If the work is not conducted according to plan, the City Corporation issues a notice to rectify the process. If the 1 day no charge 5 company does not comply with the first notice, the utility company disconnects service. If the company does not comply with the third notice, the structure will be demolished (before a building inspector, engineer, architect, surveyor, and police personnel). * Request water connection and inspection To obtain a water connection, BuildCo must submit an application to the building section of the City Corporation and pay a connection fee 6 of BTN 3,200.00 for a 3/2 inch pipe to the Revenue Section of the water 1 day BTN 3,200 company. All connections must be pre-verifed to check whether they comply with water and sanitation rules. * Receive inspection of water connections All connections must be pre-verified to check whether they comply with 1 day no charge 7 water and sanitation rules. The wait time is about 7 -- 9 days. * Connect to water services 8 10 days no charge Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 31 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Receive excavation work inspection Excavation work is inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, Buildco does not have to request an inspection. 1 day no charge 9 Moreover, BuildCo does not need to stop work during inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Receive foundation work inspection Foundation work is inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, BuildCo does not have to request an inspection. 1 day no charge 10 Moreover, BuildCo does not need to stop work during the inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Receive concrete work inspection Concrete work is inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, BuildCo does not have to request an inspection. Moreover, 1 day no charge 11 BuildCo does not need to stop work during the inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Receive drainage inspection Drainage work is inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, BuildCo does not have to request an inspection. Moreover, 1 day no charge 12 BuildCo Company does not need to stop work during the inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Receive timber scaffolding inspection Timber scaffolding is inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, BuildCo does not have to request an inspection. 1 day no charge 13 Moreover, BuildCo does not need to stop work during the inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Receive sanitary inspection Sanitary conditions are inspected about 3 weeks after the previous 1 day no charge 14 inspection. Receive fire inspection Fire conditions are inspected about 3 weeks after the previous inspection. Thus, BuildCo does not have to request an inspection. 1 day no charge 15 Moreover, BuildCo does not need to stop work during the inspection. However, it must provide the inspector with transportation to the site. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 32 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Receive structure inspection 16 1 day no charge Receive inspection of the building surroundings 17 1 day no charge Connect to sewage services To obtain sewage services, BuildCo submits an application to the 18 sewerage section of the City Corporation with a copy of the plan and a 15 days BTN 3,000 connection fee of BTN 3,000. The connection is made in about 2 weeks. * Connect to phone services To obtain a phone line, BuildCo submits the application form duly filled 19 and signed. A feasibility study is conducted by the service section of 2 days BTN 600 Bhutan Telecom. If feasible, BuildCo pays connection charges. Notify building controller of building completion A written confirmation, stating that construction is completed, is issued 1 day no charge 20 to the building controller. Receive final inspection When the construction (including utilities connections) is completed, BuildCo must notify the City Corporation. Subsequently, the site will be inspected by a team (architect, engineer, surveyor, the Corporation’s building inspector, and representatives of electrical, plumbing, and 21 sanitation agencies). The environmental commission and the telephone 1 day no charge company are also informed and asked to join the team, if necessary. If the team deems the construction completed to agreed standard and plans, it recommends the issuance of an occupancy certificate. Otherwise, they ask BuildCo to remedy the deficiencies. Request and obtain occupancy certificate 22 14 days no charge * Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 33 GETTING ELECTRICITY Access to reliable and affordable electricity is vital WHAT THE GETTING ELECTRICITY for businesses. To counter weak electricity supply, many firms in developing economies have to rely INDICATORS MEASURE on self-supply, often at a prohibitively high cost. Whether electricity is reliably available or not, the Procedures to obtain an electricity first step for a customer is always to gain access by connection (number) obtaining a connection. Submitting all relevant documents and What do the indicators cover? obtaining all necessary clearances and permits Doing Business records all procedures required for Completing all required notifications and a local business to obtain a permanent electricity receiving all necessary inspections connection and supply for a standardized warehouse, as well as the time and cost to Obtaining external installation works and complete them. These procedures include possibly purchasing material for these works applications and contracts with electricity utilities, Concluding any necessary supply contract and clearances from other agencies and the external obtaining final supply and final connection works. The ranking on the ease of getting electricity is the simple average of Time required to complete each procedure the percentile rankings on its component (calendar days) indicators: procedures, time and cost. To make the Is at least 1 calendar day data comparable across economies, several assumptions are used. Each procedure starts on a separate day The warehouse: Does not include time spent gathering information  Is located in the economy’s largest business city, in an area where other Reflects the time spent in practice, with little warehouses are located. follow-up and no prior contact with officials  Is not in a special economic zone where Cost required to complete each procedure the connection would be eligible for (% of income per capita) subsidization or faster service. Official costs only, no bribes  Has road access. The connection works Excludes value added tax involve the crossing of a road or roads but are carried out on public land.  Is to either the low-voltage or the medium-  Is a new construction being connected to voltage distribution network and either overhead electricity for the first time. or underground, whichever is more common in the economy and area where the warehouse is  Has 2 stories, both above ground, with a located. The length of any connection in the total surface of about 1,300.6 square customer’s private domain is negligible. meters (14,000 square feet), and is built on a plot of 929 square meters (10,000 square  Requires crossing of a 10-meter road but all the feet). works are carried out in a public land, so there is no crossing into other people's private property. The electricity connection:  Involves installing one electricity meter. The  Is 150 meters long and is a 3-phase, 4-wire Y, monthly electricity consumption will be 0.07 140-kilovolt-ampere (kVA) (subscribed gigawatt-hour (GWh). The internal electrical capacity) connection. wiring has been completed. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 34 GETTING ELECTRICITY Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to obtain a new electricity procedures, takes 82 days and costs 693.2% of income connection in Bhutan? According to data collected by per capita (figure 4.1). Doing Business, getting electricity there requires 5 Figure 4.1 What it takes to obtain an electricity connection in Bhutan Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. For more information on the methodology of the getting electricity indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 35 GETTING ELECTRICITY Globally, Bhutan stands at 91 in the ranking of 189 regional average ranking provide another perspective economies on the ease of getting electricity (figure in assessing how easy it is for an entrepreneur in 4.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the Bhutan to connect a warehouse to electricity. Figure 4.2 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of getting electricity Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 36 GETTING ELECTRICITY Even more helpful than rankings on the ease of getting performers on these indicators may provide useful electricity may be the indicators underlying those benchmarks. rankings (table 4.1). And regional and global best Table 4.1 The ease of getting electricity in Bhutan Best performer in Best performer Indicator Bhutan DB2014 Bhutan DB2013 South Asia DB2014 globally DB2014 Rank 91 93 Sri Lanka* (91) Iceland (1) Procedures (number) 5 5 Sri Lanka* (4) 10 Economies* (3) Time (days) 82 82 India (67) Germany (17) Cost (% of income per capita) 693.2 828.1 India (230.7) Japan (0.0) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB201 3 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. * Two or more economies share the top ranking on this indicator. For a list of these economies, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 37 GETTING ELECTRICITY Obtaining an electricity connection is essential to safety in the connection process while keeping enable a business to conduct its most basic operations. connection costs reasonable, governments around the In many economies the connection process is world have worked to consolidate requirements for complicated by the multiple laws and regulations obtaining an electricity connection. What reforms in involved—covering service quality, general safety, getting electricity has Doing Business recorded in technical standards, procurement practices and Bhutan (table 4.2)? internal wiring installations. In an effort to ensure Table 4.2 How has Bhutan made getting electricity easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 38 GETTING ELECTRICITY What are the details? The indicators reported here for Bhutan are based on a OBTAINING AN ELECTRICITY CONNECTION set of specific procedures—the steps that an entrepreneur must complete to get a warehouse connected to electricity by the local distribution City: Thimphu utility—identified by Doing Business. Data are collected from the distribution utility, then completed and Name of Utility: Bhutan Power verified by electricity regulatory agencies and Corporation Ltd independent professionals such as electrical engineers, The procedures are those that apply to a warehouse electrical contractors and construction companies. The and electricity connection matching the standard electricity distribution utility surveyed is the one assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the serving the area (or areas) in which warehouses are data (see the section in this chapter on what the located. If there is a choice of distribution utilities, the indicators cover). The procedures, along with the one serving the largest number of customers is associated time and cost, are summarized below. selected. Summary of procedures for getting electricity in Bhutan—and the time and cost Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Submit application to Bhutan Power Corporation and await site inspection 1 Application needs to be submitted in person, with building drawings. No 7 calendar days no charge notarization required. No application fee. Receive site inspection and await estimate 2 Utility conducts external site inspection for providing estimate 15 calendar days no charge Request and receive excavation permit from Dept. of Roads for excavation 3 Customer applies for and receives excavation permit from the Dept. of 3 calendar days BTN 32,500.0 Roads Customer purchases equipment and conducts external connection works External connection works includes cost of 250 KVA substation, rabbit 42 calendar days BTN 801,250.0 4 conductor, cables, poles, line extension costs. The customer has a choice of getting external connection works done by either the utility or by the private contractor, but customers prefer to get the works done by the private contractor as it can be done faster. All materials, except the Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 39 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete distribution transformer are purchased from the utility as they have materials of the correct specification. The distribution transformer needs to be imported, usually from India. Bhutan Power Corporation conducts internal wiring inspection, testing of transformer, installs meter and electricity starts flowing The utility inspects the internal wiring, conducts testing of the 15 calendar days BTN 1,500.0 5 transformer, installs the meter, the customer pays the meter deposit charge and electricity is turned by the utility. * Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 40 REGISTERING PROPERTY Ensuring formal property rights is fundamental. WHAT THE REGISTERING PROPERTY Effective administration of land is part of that. If INDICATORS MEASURE formal property transfer is too costly or complicated, formal titles might go informal again. And where property is informal or poorly Procedures to legally transfer title on administered, it has little chance of being immovable property (number) accepted as collateral for loans—limiting access to Preregistration (for example, checking for liens, finance. notarizing sales agreement, paying property transfer taxes) What do the indicators cover? Registration in the economy’s largest business Doing Business records the full sequence of city procedures necessary for a business to purchase property from another business and transfer the Postregistration (for example, filing title with the municipality) property title to the buyer’s name. The transaction is considered complete when it is opposable to Time required to complete each procedure third parties and when the buyer can use the (calendar days) property, use it as collateral for a bank loan or Does not include time spent gathering resell it. The ranking on the ease of registering information property is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its component indicators: procedures, Each procedure starts on a separate day. time and cost. Procedures that can be fully completed online are an exception to this rule. To make the data comparable across economies, Procedure considered completed once final several assumptions about the parties to the document is received transaction, the property and the procedures are used. No prior contact with officials The parties (buyer and seller): Cost required to complete each procedure (% of property value)  Are limited liability companies, 100% domestically and privately owned. Official costs only, no bribes  Are located in the economy’s largest No value added or capital gains taxes included business city. and no rezoning is required.  Have 50 employees each, all of whom are  Has no mortgages attached and has been nationals. under the same ownership for the past 10  Perform general commercial activities. years. The property (fully owned by the seller):  Consists of 557.4 square meters (6,000 square feet) of land and a 10-year-old, 2-story  Has a value of 50 times income per capita. warehouse of 929 square meters (10,000 The sale price equals the value. square feet). The warehouse is in good  Is registered in the land registry or cada- condition and complies with all safety stre, or both, and is free of title disputes. standards, building codes and legal requirements. There is no heating system. The  Is located in a periurban commercial zone, property will be transferred in its entirety. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 41 REGISTERING PROPERTY Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to complete a property transfer in procedures, takes 92.0 days and costs 5.0% of the Bhutan? According to data collected by Doing property value (figure 5.1). Business, registering property there requires 3 Figure 5.1 What it takes to register property in Bhutan Note: Time shown in the figure above may not reflect simultaneity of procedures. Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. For more information on the methodology of the registering property indicators, see the Doing Business website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). For details on the procedures reflected here, see the summary at the end of this chapter. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 42 REGISTERING PROPERTY Globally, Bhutan stands at 86 in the ranking of 189 regional average ranking provide other useful economies on the ease of registering property (figure information for assessing how easy it is for an 5.2). The rankings for comparator economies and the entrepreneur in Bhutan to transfer property. Figure 5.2 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of registering property Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 43 REGISTERING PROPERTY What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over what is possible in making it easier to register time have had the best performance regionally or property. And changes in regional averages can show globally on the procedures, time or cost required to where Bhutan is keeping up—and where it is falling complete a property transfer (figure 5.3) help show behind. Figure 5.3 Has registering property become easier over time? Procedures (number) Time (days) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 44 REGISTERING PROPERTY Cost (% of property value) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. For more information on “no practice” marks, see the data notes. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 45 REGISTERING PROPERTY Economies worldwide have been making it easier for have cut the time required substantially—enabling entrepreneurs to register and transfer property—such buyers to use or mortgage their property earlier. What as by computerizing land registries, introducing time property registration reforms has Doing Business limits for procedures and setting low fixed fees. Many recorded in Bhutan (table 5.1)? Table 5.1 How has Bhutan made registering property easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 46 REGISTERING PROPERTY What are the details? The indicators reported here are based on a set of STANDARD PROPERTY TRANSFER specific procedures—the steps that a buyer and seller must complete to transfer the property to the buyer’s name—identified by Doing Business through information collected from local property City: Thimphu lawyers, notaries and property registries. These procedures are those that apply to a transaction Property Value: BTN 6,025,070 matching the standard assumptions used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the section in The procedures, along with the associated time and this chapter on what the indicators cover). cost, are summarized below. Summary of procedures for registering property in Bhutan—and the time and cost Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Complete and submit the Land Transfer Form to the Thimphu District Municipality (TDM) The Land Transfer Form is completed by the seller with all required documents. It will take between 3 – 4 months for all internal process to 90 days (the Land take place. Record Division keeps the papers (1) The Land Act requires TDM to issue to the seller a transaction ID number, verify if property is legally registered and if all tax liability is under cleared; observation from (2) TDM Land Records Section surveys the plot to identify it and fix the time forms 1 no cost boundaries. are submitted for (3) TDM transfers the documents to the Land Commission for approval. 30 days & the (4) The Land Commission approves the property transfer and transfers Survey section the Ownership Certificate to TDM. surveys the plot (5) TDM will then inform the buyer to come and to pay the Transfer Tax for another 30 at TDM days) The Thimphu Thromde would then issue the Lagthram-the ownership certficate to the new lanowner, prepared by the NLCS. Buyer pays transfer tax at the Thimphu Thromde Revenue Section Buyer pays the transfer tax at the Thimphu Thromde Revenue Section and collects the Revenue Certificate, as proof of payment (separate 5% of the property 2 building). The Revenue Section is closed on Thursday and Friday. From 1 day value Monday October 18, 2010 the Revenue Section set up an office in the same building as the Land Records Section and company can pay in the same building. The company will pick up an already ready Revenue Certificate upon payment. The company must pay transfer tax with the Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 47 Time to No. Procedure Cost to complete complete Thimphu Thromde within 2 months otherwise the buyer will be asked to pay charges, i.e 5% of the land tax applicable multiplied by the number of days from the two months payment has to be done with the TT. Buyer collects Ownership Certificate and Revenue Certificate at the Thimphu Thromde Land Records Section The ownership certificate guarantees all legal rights to the owner. The 1 day BTN 30 3 certificate is supported by a site plan/map and is issued upon the landowner's request. * Takes place simultaneously with another procedure. Note: Online procedures account for 0.5 days in the total time calculation. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 48 GETTING CREDIT Two types of frameworks can facilitate access to WHAT THE GETTING CREDIT INDICATORS credit and improve its allocation: credit information MEASURE systems and borrowers and lenders in collateral and bankruptcy laws. Credit information systems enable lenders’ rights to view a potential borrower’s Strength of legal rights index (0–10) financial history (positive or negative)—valuable Rights of borrowers and lenders through information to consider when assessing risk. And collateral laws they permit borrowers to establish a good credit Protection of secured creditors’ rights through history that will allow easier access to credit. Sound bankruptcy laws collateral laws enable businesses to use their assets, especially movable property, as security to generate Depth of credit information index (0–6) capital—while strong creditors’ rights have been Scope and accessibility of credit information associated with higher ratios of private sector credit distributed by public credit registries and to GDP. private credit bureaus What do the indicators cover? Public credit registry coverage (% of adults) Doing Business assesses the sharing of credit Number of individuals and firms listed in information and the legal rights of borrowers and public credit registry as percentage of adult lenders with respect to secured transactions population through 2 sets of indicators. The depth of credit Private credit bureau coverage (% of adults) information index measures rules and practices Number of individuals and firms listed in affecting the coverage, scope and accessibility of largest private credit bureau as percentage of credit information available through a public credit adult population registry or a private credit bureau. The strength of legal rights index measures whether certain features that facilitate lending exist within the applicable collateral and bankruptcy laws. Doing Business uses case scenarios to determine the scope of the  Has up to 100 employees. secured transactions system, involving a secured  Is 100% domestically owned, as is the lender. borrower and a secured lender and examining legal The ranking on the ease of getting credit is based on restrictions on the use of movable collateral. These the percentile rankings on the sum of its component scenarios assume that the borrower: indicators: the depth of credit information index and  Is a private, incorporated, limited liability the strength of legal rights index. company.  Has its headquarters and only base of operations in the largest business city. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 49 GETTING CREDIT Where does the economy stand today? How well do the credit information system and Globally, Bhutan stands at 109 in the ranking of 189 collateral and bankruptcy laws in Bhutan facilitate economies on the ease of getting credit (figure 6.1). access to credit? The economy has a score of 5 on the The rankings for comparator economies and the depth of credit information index and a score of 3 on regional average ranking provide other useful the strength of legal rights index (see the summary of information for assessing how well regulations and scoring at the end of this chapter for details). Higher institutions in Bhutan support lending and borrowing. scores indicate more credit information and stronger legal rights for borrowers and lenders. Figure 6.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of getting credit Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 50 GETTING CREDIT What are the changes over time? While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how institutions and regulations have been strengthened — well the credit information system and collateral and and where they have not (table 6.1). That can help bankruptcy laws in Bhutan support lending and identify where the potential for improvement is borrowing today, data over time can help show where greatest. Table 6.1 The ease of getting credit in Bhutan over time By Doing Business report year Indicator DB2005 DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013 DB2014 Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 126 109 Strength of legal rights 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 index (0-10) Depth of credit 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 5 information index (0-6) Public registry coverage 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.4 13.5 15.6 (% of adults) Private bureau 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 coverage (% of adults) Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 51 GETTING CREDIT One way to put an economy’s score on the getting shows the number of economies with this score in credit indicators into context is to see where the 2013 as well as the regional average score. Figure 6.3 economy stands in the distribution of scores across shows the same thing for the depth of credit economies. Figure 6.2 highlights the score on the information index. strength of legal rights index for Bhutan in 2013 and Figure 6.2 How strong are legal rights for borrowers Figure 6.3 How much credit information is shared— and lenders? and how widely? Number of economies with each score on strength of legal Number of economies with each score on depth of credit rights index (0–10), 2013 information index (0–6), 2013 Note: Higher scores indicate that collateral and bankruptcy Note: Higher scores indicate the availability of more credit laws are better designed to facilitate access to credit. information, from either a credit registry or a credit bureau, Source: Doing Business database. to facilitate lending decisions. Regional averages for the depth of credit information index exclude economies with no credit registry or credit bureau. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 52 GETTING CREDIT When economies strengthen the legal rights of lenders credit information, they can increase entrepreneurs’ and borrowers under collateral and bankruptcy laws, access to credit. What credit reforms has Doing and increase the scope, coverage and accessibility of Business recorded in Bhutan (table 6.2)? Table 6.2 How has Bhutan made getting credit easier —or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Bhutan improved its credit information system by launching the DB2012 operation of a public credit registry. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Bhutan improved access to credit information through new regulations governing the licensing and functioning of the DB2014 credit bureau and guaranteeing borrowers’ right to access their data. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 53 GETTING CREDIT What are the details? The getting credit indicators reported here for Bhutan The data on the legal rights of borrowers and lenders are based on detailed information collected in that are gathered through a survey of financial lawyers and economy. The data on credit information sharing are verified through analysis of laws and regulations as collected through a survey of a credit registry and/or well as public sources of information on collateral and credit bureau (if one exists). To construct the depth of bankruptcy laws. For the strength of legal rights index, credit information index, a score of 1 is assigned for a score of 1 is assigned for each of 8 aspects related to each of 6 features of the credit registry or credit legal rights in collateral law and 2 aspects in bureau (see summary of scoring below). bankruptcy law. Summary of scoring for the getting credit indicators in Bhutan OECD high income Indicator Bhutan South Asia average average Strength of legal rights index (0-10) 3 6 7 Depth of credit information index (0-6) 5 4 5 Public registry coverage (% of adults) 15.6 10.5 42.9 Private bureau coverage (% of adults) 0.0 15.4 73.9 Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed once. Regional averages for the depth of credit information index exclude economies with no credit registry or credit bureau. Regional averages for the credit registry coverage exclude economies with no credit registry. Regional averages for the credit bureau coverage exclude economies with no credit bureau. Strength of legal rights index (0–10) Index score: 3 Can any business use movable assets as collateral while keeping possession of the assets; and Yes any financial institution accept such assets as collateral ? Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in a single category of No movable assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in substantially all of No its assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral? May a security right extend to future or after-acquired assets, and may it extend automatically No to the products, proceeds or replacements of the original assets ? Is a general description of debts and obligations permitted in collateral agreements; can all types of debts and obligations be secured between parties; and can the collateral agreement No include a maximum amount for which the assets are encumbered? Is a collateral registry in operation, that is unified geographically and by asset type, with an No electronic database indexed by debtor's names? Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 54 Strength of legal rights index (0–10) Index score: 3 Are secured creditors paid first (i.e. before tax claims and employee claims) when a debtor No defaults outside an insolvency procedure? Are secured creditors paid first (i.e. before tax claims and employee claims) when a business is No liquidated? Are secured creditors either not subject to an automatic stay on enforcement when a debtor enters a court-supervised reorganization procedure, or does the law provide secured Yes creditors with grounds for relief from an automatic stay or/and sets a time limit to it? Does the law allow parties to agree in a collateral agreement that the lender may enforce its Yes security right out of court, at the time a security interest is created? Depth of credit information index (0–6) Credit bureau Credit registry Index score: 5 Are data on both firms and individuals distributed? No Yes 1 Are both positive and negative data distributed? No Yes 1 Does the registry distribute credit information from retailers, trade creditors or utility companies as well as No No 0 financial institutions? Are more than 2 years of historical credit information No Yes 1 distributed? Is data on all loans below 1% of income per capita No Yes 1 distributed? Is it guaranteed by law that borrowers can inspect No Yes 1 their data in the largest credit registry? Note: An economy receives a score of 1 if there is a "yes" to either private bureau or public registry. Credit bureau Credit registry Coverage (% of adults) (% of adults) Number of firms 0 446 Number of individuals 0 76,900 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 55 PROTECTING INVESTORS Protecting investors matters for the ability of WHAT THE PROTECTING INVESTORS companies to raise the capital they need to grow, INDICATORS MEASURE innovate, diversify and compete. If the laws do not protect minority shareholders, investors may be reluctant to provide funding to companies through Extent of disclosure index (0–10) the purchase of shares unless they become the Approval process for related-party controlling shareholders. Effective regulations define transactions related-party transactions precisely, promote clear Disclosure requirements in case of related- and efficient disclosure requirements, require party transactions shareholder participation in major decisions of the company and set detailed standards of accountability Extent of director liability index (0–10) for company insiders. Ability of minority shareholders to file a direct or derivative lawsuit What do the indicators cover? Ability of minority shareholders to hold Doing Business measures the strength of minority interested parties and members of the shareholder protections against directors’ use of approving body liable for prejudicial related- corporate assets for personal gain—or self-dealing. party transactions The indicators distinguish 3 dimensions of investor protections: transparency of related-party Available legal remedies (damages, repayment of profits, fines, imprisonment and rescission transactions (extent of disclosure index), liability for of the transaction) self-dealing (extent of director liability index) and minority shareholders’ access to evidence before and Ease of shareholder suits index (0–10) during trial (ease of shareholder suits index). The Access to internal corporate documents ranking on the strength of investor protection index is (directly or through a government inspector) the simple average of the percentile rankings on these 3 indices. To make the data comparable across Documents and information available during trial economies, a case study uses several assumptions about the business and the transaction. Strength of investor protection index (0–10) The business (Buyer): Simple average of the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of  Is a publicly traded corporation listed on the shareholder suits indices economy’s most important stock exchange (or at least a large private company with multiple shareholders). the company purchase used trucks from another company he owns.  Has a board of directors and a chief executive officer (CEO) who may legally act on behalf of  The price is higher than the going price for used Buyer where permitted, even if this is not trucks, but the transaction goes forward. specifically required by law.  All required approvals are obtained, and all The transaction involves the following details: required disclosures made, though the transaction is prejudicial to Buyer.  Mr. James, a director and the majority shareholder of the company, proposes that  Shareholders sue the interested parties and the members of the board of directors. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 56 PROTECTING INVESTORS Where does the economy stand today? How strong are investor protections against self- index (figure 7.1). While the indicator does not dealing in Bhutan? The economy has a score of 3.7 on measure all aspects related to the protection of the strength of investor protection index, with a higher minority investors, a higher ranking does indicate that score indicating stronger protections (see the an economy’s regulations offer stronger investor summary of scoring at the end of this chapter for protections against self-dealing in the areas measured. details). Globally, Bhutan stands at 147 in the ranking of 189 economies on the strength of investor protection Figure 7.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the strength of investor protection index Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 57 PROTECTING INVESTORS What are the changes over time? While the most recent Doing Business data reflect how ranking on the strength of investor protection index well regulations in Bhutan protect minority investors over time shows whether the economy is slipping today, data over time show whether the protections behind other economies in investor protections—or have been strengthened (table 7.1). And the global surpassing them. Table 7.1 The strength of investor protections in Bhutan over time By Doing Business report year Indicator DB2006 DB2007 DB2008 DB2009 DB2010 DB2011 DB2012 DB2013 DB2014 Rank .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 147 147 Extent of disclosure 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 index (0-10) Extent of director 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 liability index (0-10) Ease of shareholder 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 suits index (0-10) Strength of investor protection index (0- 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.7 10) Note: n.a. = not applicable (the economy was not included in Doing Business for that year). DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 58 PROTECTING INVESTORS One way to put an economy’s scores on the protecting shows the number of economies with this score in investors indicators into context is to see where the 2013 as well as the regional average score. Figure 7.3 economy stands in the distribution of scores across applies to the extent of director liability index, and economies. Figure 7.2 highlights the score on the figure 7.4 to the ease of shareholder suits index. extent of disclosure index for Bhutan in 2013 and Figure 7.2 How strong are disclosure requirements? Figure 7.3 How strong is the liability regime for directors? Number of economies with each score on the extent of Number of economies with each score on the extent of director liability index (0–10), 2013 disclosure index (0–10), 2013 Note: Higher scores indicate greater liability of directors. Note: Higher scores indicate greater disclosure. Source: Doing Business database. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 59 PROTECTING INVESTORS Figure 7.4 How easy is accessing internal corporate documents? Number of economies with each score on the ease of shareholder suits index (0–10), 2013 Note: Higher scores indicate greater minority shareholder access to evidence before and during trial. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 60 PROTECTING INVESTORS The scores recorded over time for Bhutan on the changes over time in the regional average score on strength of investor protection index may also be this index. revealing (figure 7.5). Equally interesting may be the Figure 7.5 Have investor protections become stronger over time? Strength of investor protection index (0–10) Note: The higher the score, the stronger the protections. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 61 PROTECTING INVESTORS Economies with the strongest protections of minority reasonable time. As a result, reforms to strengthen investors from self-dealing require detailed disclosure investor protections may move ahead on different and define clear duties for directors. They also have fronts—such as through new or amended company well-functioning courts and up-to-date procedural laws, securities regulations or civil procedure rules. rules that give minority shareholders the means to What investor protection reforms has Doing Business prove their case and obtain a judgment within a recorded in Bhutan (table 7.2)? Table 7.2 How has Bhutan strengthened investor protections —or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 62 PROTECTING INVESTORS What are the details? The protecting investors indicators reported here for ease of shareholder suits indices, scores are assigned Bhutan are based on detailed information collected to each based on a range of conditions relating to through a survey of corporate and securities lawyers disclosure, director liability and shareholder suits in a about securities regulations, company laws and court standard case study transaction (see the data notes at rules of evidence and procedure. To construct the the end of this chapter). The summary below shows extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and the details underlying the scores for Bhutan. Summary of scoring for the protecting investors indicators in Bhutan South Asia OECD high income Indicator Bhutan average average Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 5 7 Extent of director liability index (0-10) 3 4 5 Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 4 6 7 Strength of investor protection index (0-10) 3.7 5.1 6.2 Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed once. Score Score description Extent of disclosure index (0-10) 4 What corporate body provides legally sufficient Board of directors and Mr. James is 2 approval for the transaction? not allowed to vote Whether disclosure of the conflict of interest by Mr. Existence of a conflict without any 1 James to the board of directors is required? specifics Whether immediate disclosure of the transaction to 0 No disclosure obligation the public and/or shareholders is required? Whether disclosure of the transaction in published 1 Disclosure on the transaction only periodic filings (annual reports) is required? Whether an external body must review the terms of 0 No the transaction before it takes place? Extent of director liability index (0-10) 3 Whether shareholders can sue directly or derivatively for the damage that the Buyer-Seller transaction 1 Yes causes to the company? Whether shareholders can hold Mr. James liable for the damage that the Buyer-Seller transaction causes 0 Not liable to the company? Whether shareholders can hold members of the approving body liable for the damage that the Buyer- 1 Liable for negligence Seller transaction causes to the company? Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 63 Score Score description Possible when the transaction is Whether a court can void the transaction upon a 1 oppressive or prejudicial to minority successful claim by a shareholder plaintiff? shareholders Whether Mr. James pays damages for the harm caused to the company upon a successful claim by 0 No the shareholder plaintiff? Whether Mr. James repays profits made from the transaction upon a successful claim by the 0 No shareholder plaintiff? Whether fines and imprisonment can be applied 0 No against Mr. James? Ease of shareholder suits index (0-10) 4 Whether shareholders owning 10% or less of Buyer's shares can inspect transaction documents before 1 Yes filing suit? Whether shareholders owning 10% or less of Buyer's shares can request an inspector to investigate the 1 Yes transaction? Whether the plaintiff can obtain any documents from 0 No documents available the defendant and witnesses during trial? Whether the plaintiff can request categories of documents from the defendant without identifying 0 No specific ones? Whether the plaintiff can directly question the 1 Yes defendant and witnesses during trial? Whether the level of proof required for civil suits is 1 Yes lower than that of criminal cases? Strength of investor protection index (0-10) 3.7 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 64 PAYING TAXES Taxes are essential. They fund the public amenities, WHAT THE PAYING TAXES INDICATORS infrastructure and services that are crucial for a MEASURE properly functioning economy. But the level of tax rates needs to be carefully chosen—and needless Tax payments for a manufacturing company complexity in tax rules avoided. According to in 2012 (number per year adjusted for Doing Business data, in economies where it is more electronic and joint filing and payment) difficult and costly to pay taxes, larger shares of economic activity end up in the informal sector — Total number of taxes and contributions paid, where businesses pay no taxes at all. including consumption taxes (value added tax, sales tax or goods and service tax) What do the indicators cover? Method and frequency of filing and payment Using a case scenario, Doing Business measures Time required to comply with 3 major taxes the taxes and mandatory contributions that a (hours per year) medium-size company must pay in a given year as well as the administrative burden of paying taxes Collecting information and computing the tax and contributions. This case scenario uses a set of payable financial statements and assumptions about Completing tax return forms, filing with transactions made over the year. Information is proper agencies also compiled on the frequency of filing and Arranging payment or withholding payments as well as time taken to comply with tax laws. The ranking on the ease of paying taxes is Preparing separate tax accounting books, if the simple average of the percentile rankings on required its component indicators: number of annual Total tax rate (% of profit before all taxes) payments, time and total tax rate, with a threshold 1 Profit or corporate income tax being applied to the total tax rate. To make the data comparable across economies, several Social contributions and labor taxes paid by assumptions about the business and the taxes and the employer contributions are used. Property and property transfer taxes  TaxpayerCo is a medium-size business that Dividend, capital gains and financial started operations on January 1, 2011. transactions taxes  The business starts from the same financial Waste collection, vehicle, road and other taxes position in each economy. All the taxes  Taxes and mandatory contributions include and mandatory contributions paid during corporate income tax, turnover tax and all the second year of operation are recorded. labor taxes and contributions paid by the  Taxes and mandatory contributions are company. measured at all levels of government.  A range of standard deductions and exemptions are also recorded. 1 The threshold is defined as the highest total tax rate among the top 15% of economies in the ranking on the total tax rate. It is calculated and adjusted on a yearly basis. The threshold is not based on any economic theory of an “optimal tax rate” that minimizes distortions or maxi mizes efficiency in the tax system of an economy overall. Instead, it is mainly empirical in nature, set at the lower end of the distribution of tax rates levied on medium-size enterprises in the manufacturing sector as observed through the paying taxes indicators. This reduces the bias in the indicators toward economies that do not need to levy significant taxes on companies like the Doing Business standardized case study company because they raise public revenue in other ways—for example, through taxes on foreign companies, through taxes on sectors other than manufacturing or from natural resources (all of which are outside the scope of the methodology). This year’s threshold is 25.5%. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 65 PAYING TAXES Where does the economy stand today? What is the administrative burden of complying with Globally, Bhutan stands at 104 in the ranking of 189 taxes in Bhutan—and how much do firms pay in taxes? economies on the ease of paying taxes (figure 8.1). The On average, firms make 19 tax payments a year, spend rankings for comparator economies and the regional 274 hours a year filing, preparing and paying taxes and average ranking provide other useful information for pay total taxes amounting to 40.8% of profit (see the assessing the tax compliance burden for businesses in summary at the end of this chapter for details). Bhutan. Figure 8.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of paying taxes Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 66 PAYING TAXES What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over show what is possible in easing the administrative time have had the best performance regionally or burden of tax compliance. And changes in regional globally on the number of payments or the time averages can show where Bhutan is keeping up—and required to prepare and file taxes (figure 8.2) help where it is falling behind. Figure 8.2 Has paying taxes become easier over time? Payments (number per year) Time (hours per year) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 67 PAYING TAXES Total tax rate (% of profit) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. DB2013 rankings reflect changes to the methodology. For all economies with a total tax rate below the threshold of 25.5% applied in DB2014, the total tax rate is set at 25.5% for the purpose of calculating the ranking on the ease of paying taxes. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 68 PAYING TAXES Economies around the world have made paying taxes concrete results. Some economies simplifying tax faster and easier for businesses—such as by payment and reducing rates have seen tax revenue consolidating filings, reducing the frequency of rise. What tax reforms has Doing Business recorded in payments or offering electronic filing and payment. Bhutan (table 8.1)? Many have lowered tax rates. Changes have brought Table 8.1 How has Bhutan made paying taxes easier —or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 69 PAYING TAXES What are the details? The indicators reported here for Bhutan are based LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY on a standard set of taxes and contributions that would be paid by the case study company used by Doing Business in collecting the data (see the City: Thimphu section in this chapter on what the indicators cover). Tax practitioners are asked to review standard financial statements as well as a standard list of transactions that the company completed The taxes and contributions paid are listed in the during the year. Respondents are asked how much summary below, along with the associated number of in taxes and mandatory contributions the business payments, time and tax rate. must pay and what the process is for doing so. Summary of tax rates and administrative burden in Bhutan OECD high income Indicator Bhutan South Asia average average Payments (number per year) 19 33 12 Time (hours per year) 274 328 175 Profit tax (%) 36.3 16.8 16.1 Labor tax and contributions (%) 0.0 9.0 23.1 Other taxes (%) 4.4 14.8 2.0 Total tax rate (% profit) 40.8 40.6 41.3 Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed once. Total tax Notes on Tax or mandatory Payments Notes on Time Statutory Tax base rate (% of total tax contribution (number) payments (hours) tax rate profit) rate taxable Corporate income tax 2 250 30% 36.3 profit Property tax 1 0 BTN 75 per unit 2.9 varies from size of Business license 1 0 BTN 500 to building 0.8 25,000 and land Vehicle tax 1 0 BTN 13,000 fixed fee 0.5 Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 70 Total tax Notes on Tax or mandatory Payments Notes on Time Statutory Tax base rate (% of total tax contribution (number) payments (hours) tax rate profit) rate interest Tax on interest 0 0 5% 0.1 income various gross Personal income tax 13 24 0 withheld rates salaries per small Stamp duty 1 0 BTN 10 0 signature amount Totals 19 274 40.8 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 71 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS In today’s globalized world, making trade between WHAT THE TRADING ACROSS BORDERS economies easier is increasingly important for INDICATORS MEASURE business. Excessive document requirements, burdensome customs procedures, inefficient port operations and inadequate infrastructure all lead to Documents required to export and import extra costs and delays for exporters and importers, (number) stifling trade potential. Research shows that Bank documents exporters in developing countries gain more from Customs clearance documents a 10% drop in their trading costs than from a similar reduction in the tariffs applied to their Port and terminal handling documents products in global markets. Transport documents What do the indicators cover? Time required to export and import (days) Doing Business measures the time and cost Obtaining, filling out and submitting all the (excluding tariffs and the time and cost for sea documents transport) associated with exporting and importing Inland transport and handling a standard shipment of goods by sea transport, and the number of documents necessary to Customs clearance and inspections complete the transaction. The indicators cover Port and terminal handling procedural requirements such as documentation Does not include sea transport time requirements and procedures at customs and other regulatory agencies as well as at the port. They also Cost required to export and import (US$ per cover trade logistics, including the time and cost of container) inland transport to the largest business city. The All documentation ranking on the ease of trading across borders is the simple average of the percentile rankings on its Inland transport and handling component indicators: documents, time and cost Customs clearance and inspections to export and import. Port and terminal handling To make the data comparable across economies, Official costs only, no bribes Doing Business uses several assumptions about the business and the traded goods. The business: military items.  Is of medium size and employs 60 people.  Do not require refrigeration or any other special environment.  Is located in the periurban area of the economy’s largest business city.  Do not require any special phytosanitary or environmental safety standards other than  Is a private, limited liability company, accepted international standards. domestically owned, formally registered and operating under commercial laws and  Are one of the economy’s leading export or regulations of the economy. import products. The traded goods:  Are transported in a dry-cargo, 20-foot full container load.  Are not hazardous nor do they include Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 72 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS Where does the economy stand today? What does it take to export or import in Bhutan? Globally, Bhutan stands at 172 in the ranking of 189 According to data collected by Doing Business, economies on the ease of trading across borders exporting a standard container of goods requires 9 (figure 9.1). The rankings for comparator economies documents, takes 38 days and costs $2230. Importing and the regional average ranking provide other useful the same container of goods requires 12 documents, information for assessing how easy it is for a business takes 38 days and costs $2330 (see the summary of in Bhutan to export and import goods. procedures and documents at the end of this chapter for details). Figure 9.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of trading across borders Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 73 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over possible in making it easier to trade across borders. time have had the best performance regionally or And changes in regional averages can show where globally on the documents, time or cost required to Bhutan is keeping up—and where it is falling behind. export or import (figure 9.2) help show what is Figure 9.2 Has trading across borders become easier over time? Documents to export (number) Time to export (days) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 74 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS Cost to export (US$ per container) Documents to import (number) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 75 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS Time to import (days) Cost to import (US$ per container) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB201 3 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 76 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS In economies around the world, trading across borders systems. These changes help improve the trading as measured by Doing Business has become faster and environment and boost firms’ international easier over the years. Governments have introduced competitiveness. What trade reforms has Doing tools to facilitate trade—including single windows, Business recorded in Bhutan (table 9.1)? risk-based inspections and electronic data interchange Table 9.1 How has Bhutan made trading across borders easier —or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2006), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 77 TRADING ACROSS BORDERS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Bhutan are based LOCATION OF STANDARDIZED COMPANY on a set of specific procedural requirements for trading a standard shipment of goods by ocean transport (see the section in this chapter on what City: Thimphu the indicators cover). Information on the procedures as well as the required documents and the time and cost to complete each procedure is The procedural requirements, and the associated time collected from local freight forwarders, shipping and cost, for exporting and importing a standard lines, customs brokers, port officials and banks. shipment of goods are listed in the summary below, along with the required documents. Summary of procedures and documents for trading across borders in Bhutan OECD high income Indicator Bhutan South Asia average average Documents to export (number) 9 8 4 Time to export (days) 38 33 11 Cost to export (US$ per container) 2,230 1,787 1,070 Documents to import (number) 12 10 4 Time to import (days) 38 34 10 Cost to import (US$ per container) 2,330 1,968 1,090 Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed once. Procedures to export Time (days) Cost (US$) Documents preparation 16 350 Customs clearance and technical control 3 180 Ports and terminal handling 6 350 Inland transportation and handling 13 1,350 Totals 38 2,230 Procedures to import Time (days) Cost (US$) Documents preparation 17 250 Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 78 Procedures to import Time (days) Cost (US$) Customs clearance and technical control 4 380 Ports and terminal handling 6 350 Inland transportation and handling 11 1,350 Totals 38 2,330 Documents to export Documents to import Bill of lading Bill of lading Certificate of origin Cargo release order Commercial invoice Certificate of Origin Customs export declaration Commercial invoice Insurance certificate Customs import declaration Packing list Import license Road/ dispatch challan (transport document) Insurance certificate Terminal handling receipts Letter of Guarantee (for transit of imported goods through India) Transit declaration Packing list Source: Doing Business database. Road/ dispatch challan (transport document) Technical standard certificate Terminal handling receipts Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 79 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Effective commercial dispute resolution has many WHAT THE ENFORCING CONTRACTS benefits. Courts are essential for entrepreneurs INDICATORS MEASURE because they interpret the rules of the market and protect economic rights. Efficient and transparent Procedures to enforce a contract through courts encourage new business relationships the courts (number) because businesses know they can rely on the courts if a new customer fails to pay. Speedy trials Steps to file and serve the case are essential for small enterprises, which may lack Steps for trial and judgment the resources to stay in business while awaiting the outcome of a long court dispute. Steps to enforce the judgment Time required to complete procedures What do the indicators cover? (calendar days) Doing Business measures the efficiency of the Time to file and serve the case judicial system in resolving a commercial dispute before local courts. Following the step-by-step Time for trial and obtaining judgment evolution of a standardized case study, it collects Time to enforce the judgment data relating to the time, cost and procedural complexity of resolving a commercial lawsuit. The Cost required to complete procedures (% of ranking on the ease of enforcing contracts is the claim) simple average of the percentile rankings on its Average attorney fees component indicators: procedures, time and cost. Court costs The dispute in the case study involves the breach Enforcement costs of a sales contract between 2 domestic businesses. The case study assumes that the court hears an expert on the quality of the goods in dispute. This distinguishes the case from simple debt enforcement. To make the data comparable across economies, Doing Business uses several assumptions about the case:  The seller and buyer are located in the economy’s largest business city.  The dispute on the quality of the goods requires an expert opinion.  The buyer orders custom-made goods, then fails to pay.  The judge decides in favor of the seller; there is no appeal.  The seller sues the buyer before a competent court.  The seller enforces the judgment through a public sale of the buyer’s movable assets.  The value of the claim is 200% of income per capita.  The seller requests a pretrial attachment to secure the claim. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 80 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Where does the economy stand today? How efficient is the process of resolving a commercial Globally, Bhutan stands at 37 in the ranking of 189 dispute through the courts in Bhutan? According to economies on the ease of enforcing contracts (figure data collected by Doing Business, contract enforcement 10.1). The rankings for comparator economies and the takes 225 days, costs 0.1% of the value of the claim regional average ranking provide other useful and requires 47 procedures (see the summary at the benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of contract end of this chapter for details). enforcement in Bhutan. Figure 10.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of enforcing contracts Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 81 ENFORCING CONTRACTS What are the changes over time? The benchmarks provided by the economies that over help show what is possible in improving the efficiency time have had the best performance regionally or of contract enforcement. And changes in regional globally on the number of steps, time or cost required averages can show where Bhutan is keeping up—and to enforce a contract through the courts (figure 10.2) where it is falling behind. Figure 10.2 Has enforcing contracts become easier over time? Time (days) Cost (% of claim) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 82 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Procedures (number) Note: DB2013 rankings shown are not last year’s published rankings but comparable rankings for DB2013 that capture the effects of such factors as data corrections and the addition of 4 economies (Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan) to the sample this year. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 83 ENFORCING CONTRACTS Economies in all regions have improved contract often work on reducing backlogs by introducing enforcement in recent years. A judiciary can be periodic reviews to clear inactive cases from the docket improved in different ways. Higher-income economies and by making procedures faster. What reforms tend to look for ways to enhance efficiency by making it easier (or more difficult) to enforce contracts introducing new technology. Lower-income economies has Doing Business recorded in Bhutan (table 10.1)? Table 10.1 How has Bhutan made enforcing contracts easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform Bhutan created a Land Commission to handle cases involving the transfer of property. This took about 30% of all cases out DB2009 of the district courts. The total time to enforce a contract decreased from 275 to 225 days. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 84 ENFORCING CONTRACTS What are the details? The indicators reported here for Bhutan are based COURT NAME on a set of specific procedural steps required to resolve a standardized commercial dispute through the courts (see the section in this chapter City: Thimphu on what the indicators cover). These procedures, and the time and cost of completing them, are Claim Value LCU: 201725 identified through study of the codes of civil procedure and other court regulations, as well as Court Name: Thimphu District Court through surveys completed by local litigation lawyers (and, in a quarter of the economies The procedures for resolving a commercial lawsuit, and covered by Doing Business, by judges as well). the associated time and cost, are listed in the summary below. Summary of procedures for enforcing a contract in Bhutan—and the time and cost OECD high income Indicator Bhutan South Asia average average Time (days) 225 1,075 529 Filing and service 20 Trial and judgment 90 Enforcement of judgment 115 Cost (% of claim) 0.1 27.7 21.0 Attorney cost (% of claim) 0.0 Court cost (% of claim) 0.1 Enforcement Cost (% of claim) 0.0 Procedures (number) 47 43 31 Note: In cases where an economy’s regional classification is “OECD high income,” regional averages above are only displayed once. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 85 ENFORCING CONTRACTS No. Procedure Filing and service: Plaintiff requests payment: Plaintiff or his lawyer asks Defendant orally or in writing to comply with the 1 contract. Plaintiff’s filing of summons and complaint: Plaintiff files his summons and complaint with the court, orally * or in writing. * Plaintiff’s payment of court fees: Plaintiff pays court duties, stamp duties, or any other type of court fee. Registration of court case: The court administration registers the lawsuit or court case. This includes 2 assigning a reference number to the lawsuit or court case. Court scrutiny of summons and complaint: A judge examines Plaintiff's summons and complaint for 3 formal requirements. Judge admits summons and complaint: After verifying the formal requirements, the judge decides to * admit Plaintiff’s summons and complaint. 4 Court order for service: Upon Plaintiff’s request, judge orders process be served on Defen dant. Delivery of summons and complaint to person authorized to perform service of process on Defendant: 5 The judge or a court officer delivers the summons to a summoning office, officer, or authorized person (including Plaintiff), for service of process on Defendant. Mailing of summons and complaint: Court or process server, including (private) bailiff, mails summons * and complaint to Defendant. First attempt at physical delivery: A first attempt to physically deliver summons and complaint to 6 Defendant is successful in the majority of cases. Second attempt at physical delivery: If a first attempt was not successful, a second attempt to physically 7 deliver the summons and complaint to Defendant is required by law or standard practice. * Proof of service: Plaintiff submits proof of service to court. Application for pre-judgment attachment: Plaintiff submits an application in writing for the attachment of * Defendant's property prior to judgment. (see assumption 5) Decision on pre-judgment attachment: The judge decides whether to grant Plaintiff’s request for pre- * judgment attachment of Defendant’s property and notifies Plaintiff and Defendant of the decision. This step may include requesting that Plaintiff submit guarantees or bonds to secure Defendant Guarantees securing attached property: Plaintiff typically submits guarantees or bonds to secure 8 Defendant against possible damages to attached property. (see assumption 5) Pre-judgment attachment.: Defendant's property is attached prior to judgment. Attachment is either 9 physical or achieved by registering, marking, debiting or separating assets. (see assumption 5) Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 86 No. Procedure Custody of assets attached prior to judgment: Defendant's attached assets are put under enforcement 10 officer's or (private) bailiff's care. (see assumption 5) Report on pre-judgment attachment: Court enforcement officer or (private) bailiff issues and delivers a 11 report on the attachment of Defendant’s property to the judge. (see assumption 5) Hearing on pre-judgment attachment: A hearing takes place to resolve the question of whether 12 Defendant’s assets can be attached prior to judgment. This process may include the submission of separate summons and petitions. (see assumption 5) Trial and judgment: Defendant’s filing of preliminary exemptions: Defendant presents preliminary exemptions to the court. * Preliminary exemptions differ from answers on the merits of the claim. Examples of preliminary exemptions are statute of limitations, jurisdictions, etc. Plaintiff’s answer to preliminary exemptions: Plaintiff responds to the preliminary exemptions raised by * Defendant. Judge’s resolution on preliminary exemptions: Judge decides on preliminary exemptions separately from 13 the merits of the case. Defendant’s filing of defense or answer to Plaintiff’s claim: Defendant files a written pleading which includes his defense or answer on the merits of the case. Defendant's written answer may or may not 14 include witness statements, expert statements, the documents Defendant relies on as evidence and the legal authori Deadline for Plaintiff to answer Defendant's defense or answer: Judge sets the deadline by which Plaintiff 15 will be allowed to answer Defendant's defense or answer. Plaintiff’s written response to Defendant's defense or answer: Plaintiff responds to Defendant’s defense or 16 answer with a written pleading. Plaintiff's answer may or may not include a witness statements or expert (witness) statements. Filing of pleadings: Plaintiff and Defendant file written pleadings and submissions with the court and 17 transmit copies of the written pleadings or submissions to one another. The pleadings may or may not include witness statements or expert (witness) statements. Adjournments: Court procedure is delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an 18 adjournment to submit written pleadings. Court appointment of independent expert: Judge appoints, either at the parties' request or at his own * initiative, an independent expert to decide whether the quality of the goods Plaintiff delivered to Defendant is adequate. (see assumption 6-b of this case) Notification of court-appointment of independent expert: The court notifies both parties that the court is 19 appointing an independent expert. (see assumption 6-b of this case) Delivery of expert report by court-appointed expert: The independent expert appointed by the court * delivers his or her expert report to the court. (see assumption 6-b of this case) Discovery requests: Plaintiff and Defendant make requests for the disclosure of documents, attempting to * force the other party to reveal potentially detrimental documents. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 87 No. Procedure Discovery disputes: Following a request for discovery of documentary evidence, the other party disputes 20 the request and calls upon the judge to decide the issue. * Setting of date(s) for oral hearing or trial: The judge sets the date(s) for the oral hearing or trial. Preliminary hearing aimed at preparing for the oral hearing: The judge meets the parties to make practical 21 arrangements for the oral hearing on the merits of the case. Pre-trial conference aimed at preparing for trial: The judge meets with parties to make practical 22 arrangements for the trial (for example, the number of witnesses parties intend to call on during trial, how much time each party is given to present oral arguments etc.). * List of (expert) witnesses: The parties file a list of (expert) witnesses with the court. (see assumption 6-a) Summoning of (expert) witnesses: The court summons (expert) witnesses to appear in court for the oral 23 hearing or trial. (see assumption 6-a) Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an 24 adjournment to prepare for the oral hearing or trial. Oral hearing (prevalent in civil law): The parties argue the merits of the case at an oral hearing before the 25 judge. Witnesses and a court-appointed independent expert may be heard and questioned at the oral hearing. Trial (prevalent in common law): The parties argue the merits of the case at (an) oral session(s) before the 26 court. Witnesses and expert witnesses are questioned and cross-examined during trial. Adjournments: Court proceedings are delayed because one or both parties request and obtain an 27 adjournment during the oral hearing or trial, resulting in an additional or later trial or hearing date. 28 Closing of the evidence period: The court makes the formal decision to close the evidence period. Order for submission of final arguments: The judge sets the deadline for the submission of final factual 29 and legal arguments. Final arguments: The parties present their final factual and legal arguments to the court either by oral * presentation or by a written submission. 30 Judgment date: The judge sets a date for delivery of the judgment. 31 Notification of judgment in court: The parties are notified of the judgment at a court hearing. 32 Writing of judgment: The judge produces a written copy of the judgment. Registration of judgment: The court office registers the judgment after receiving a written copy of the 33 judgment. Court notification of availability of the written judgment: The court notifies the parties that the written 34 judgment is available at the courthouse. 35 Plaintiff's receipt of a copy of written judgment: Plaintiff receives a copy of the written judgment. Notification of Defendant of judgment: Plaintiff or court formally notifies the Defendant of the judgment. 36 The appeal period starts to run the day the Defendant is formally notified of the judgment. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 88 No. Procedure Appeal period: By law, Defendant has the opportunity to appeal the judgment during a period specified in 37 the law. Defendant decides not to appeal. Judgment becomes final the day the appeal period ends. Enforcement of judgment: Plaintiff’s request for enforcement order: Plaintiff applies to the court to obtain the enforcement order * ('seal' on judgment). Attachment of enforcement order to judgment: The judge attaches the enforcement order (‘seal’) to the 38 judgment. Plaintiff’s request for physical enforcement: As Plaintiff fears that Defendant might physically resist the * attachment of its movable goods, Plaintiff addresses a request to the judge or to the police authorities to obtain police assistance during the attachment of Defendant's movable goods. Judge's order for physical enforcement: The judge orders the police to assist with the physical 39 enforcement of the attachment of Defendant's movable goods. Notification of intent to attach: A court enforcement officer or (private) bailiff notifies other creditors of 40 the intent to attach Defendant's goods. Attachment: Defendant’s movable goods are attached (physically or by registering, marking or separating 41 assets). Enforcement disputes before court: The enforcement of the judgment is delayed because Defendant 42 opposes aspects of the enforcement process before the judge. Call for public auction: The judge calls a public auction by, for example, advertising or publication in the 43 newspapers. 44 Sale through public auction: The Defendant’s movable property is sold at public auction. 45 Judge's decision on bids: The judge determines the adequacy of the bids presented at public auction. Distribution of proceeds: The proceeds of the public auction are distributed to various creditors (including 46 Plaintiff), according to the rules of priority. 47 Payment: Court orders that the proceeds of the public auction or the direct sale be delivered to Plaintiff. * Not counted in the total number of procedures. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 89 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY A robust bankruptcy system functions as a filter, WHAT THE RESOLVING INSOLVENCY ensuring the survival of economically efficient companies and reallocating the resources of INDICATORS MEASURE inefficient ones. Fast and cheap insolvency proceedings result in the speedy return of Time required to recover debt (years) businesses to normal operation and increase Measured in calendar years returns to creditors. By improving the expectations of creditors and debtors about the outcome of Appeals and requests for extension are insolvency proceedings, well-functioning included insolvency systems can facilitate access to finance, Cost required to recover debt (% of debtor’s save more viable businesses and thereby improve estate) growth and sustainability in the economy overall. Measured as percentage of estate value What do the indicators cover? Court fees Doing Business studies the time, cost and outcome Fees of insolvency administrators of insolvency proceedings involving domestic entities. It does not measure insolvency Lawyers’ fees proceedings of individuals and financial Assessors’ and auctioneers’ fees institutions. The data are derived from survey Other related fees responses by local insolvency practitioners and verified through a study of laws and regulations as Outcome well as public information on bankruptcy systems. Whether business continues operating as a The ranking on the ease of resolving insolvency is going concern or business assets are sold based on the recovery rate, which is recorded as piecemeal cents on the dollar recouped by creditors through Recovery rate for creditors (cents on the reorganization, liquidation or debt enforcement dollar) (foreclosure) proceedings. The recovery rate is a Measures the cents on the dollar recovered function of time, cost and other factors, such as by creditors lending rate and the likelihood of the company continuing to operate. Present value of debt recovered To make the data comparable across economies, Official costs of the insolvency proceedings Doing Business uses several assumptions about the are deducted business and the case. It assumes that the Depreciation of furniture is taken into company: account  Is a domestically owned, limited liability Outcome for the business (survival or not) company operating a hotel. affects the maximum value that can be recovered  Operates in the economy’s largest business city.  Has 201 employees, 1 main secured  Has a higher value as a going concern—and creditor and 50 unsecured creditors. the efficient outcome is either reorganization or sale as a going concern, not piecemeal liquidation. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 90 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY Where does the economy stand today? Speed, low costs and continuation of viable businesses (foreclosure). The average recovery rate is 0.0 cents on characterize the top-performing economies. How the dollar. efficient are insolvency proceedings in Bhutan? Globally, Bhutan stands at 189 in the ranking of 189 According to data collected by Doing Business, Bhutan economies on the ease of resolving insolvency (figure receives a “no practice” mark for resolving insolvency, 11.1). The rankings for comparator economies and the indicating that in each of the previous 5 years there regional average ranking provide other useful were no cases involving a judicial reorganization, benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of insolvency judicial liquidation or debt enforcement procedure proceedings in Bhutan. Figure 11.1 How Bhutan and comparator economies rank on the ease of resolving insolvency Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 91 RESOLVING INSOLVENCY A well-balanced bankruptcy system distinguishes change. Many recent reforms of bankruptcy laws have companies that are financially distressed but been aimed at helping more of the viable businesses economically viable from inefficient companies that survive. What insolvency reforms has Doing Business should be liquidated. But in some insolvency systems recorded in Bhutan (table 11.1)? even viable businesses are liquidated. This is starting to Table 11.1 How has Bhutan made resolving insolvency easier—or not? By Doing Business report year DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Note: For information on reforms in earlier years (back to DB2005), see the Doing Business reports for these years, available at http://www.doingbusiness.org. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 92 EMPLOYING WORKERS Doing Business measures flexibility in the regulation of employing workers methodology proposed by the employment, specifically as it affects the hiring and consultative group are available on the Doing Business redundancy of workers and the rigidity of working website (http://www.doingbusiness.org). The data on hours. Over the period from 2007 to 2011 employing workers are based on a detailed survey of improvements were made to align the methodology employment regulations that is completed by local for the employing workers indicators with the letter lawyers and public officials. Employment laws and and spirit of the International Labour Organization regulations as well as secondary sources are reviewed (ILO) conventions. Only 4 of the 188 ILO conventions to ensure accuracy. cover areas measured by Doing Business: employee To make the data comparable across economies, termination, weekend work, holiday with pay and night several assumptions about the worker and the work. The Doing Business methodology is fully business are used. consistent with these 4 conventions. The ILO conventions covering areas related to the Employing The worker: Workers indicators do not include the ILO core labor  Earns a salary plus benefits equal to the standards—8 conventions covering the right to economy’s average wage during the entire collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labor, period of his employment. the abolition of child labor and equitable treatment in  Has a pay period that is the most common for workers in the economy. employment practices.  Is a lawful citizen who belongs to the same race and religion as the majority of the Between 2009 and 2011 the World Bank Group worked economy’s population. with a consultative group—including labor lawyers,  Resides in the economy’s largest business city. employer and employee representatives, and experts  Is not a member of a labor union, unless from the ILO, OECD, civil society and the private membership is mandatory. sector—to review the employing workers methodology and explore future areas of research. A i The business:  Is a limited liability company. full report with the conclusions of the consultative  Operates in the economy’s largest business group is available at city. http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/employin  Is 100% domestically owned. g-workers.  Operates in the manufacturing sector.  Has 60 employees. This year Doing Business continued research collecting  Is subject to collective bargaining agreements additional data on regulations covering the in economies where such agreements cover probationary period for new employees. more than half the manufacturing sector and apply even to firms not party to them. Doing Business 2014 presents the data on the  Abides by every law and regulation but does not grant workers more benefits than employing workers indicators in an annex. The report mandated by law, regulation or (if applicable) does not present rankings of economies on the collective bargaining agreement. employing workers indicators nor include the topic in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business. Detailed data collected on labor regulations and the Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 93 EMPLOYING WORKERS What do some of the data show? One of the employing workers indicators is the worker in his or her first job. Doing Business data show difficulty of hiring index. This measure assesses, among the trend in the minimum wage applied by Bhutan other things, the minimum wage for a 19-year-old (figure 12.1). Figure 12.1 Has the minimum wage for a 19-year-old worker or an apprentice increased over time? Minimum wage (US$ per month) Note: A horizontal line along the x-axis of the figure indicates that the economy has no minimum wage. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 94 EMPLOYING WORKERS Employment laws are needed to protect workers from past 5 years did so in ways that increased labor market arbitrary or unfair treatment and to ensure efficient flexibility. What changes did Bhutan adopt that contracting between employers and workers. Many affected the Doing Business indicators on employing economies that changed their labor regulations in the workers (table 12.1)? Table 12.1 What changes did Bhutan make in employing workers in 2013? DB year Reform DB2009 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2010 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2011 Bhutan established the mandatory paid annual leave. DB2012 No reform as measured by Doing Business. DB2013 Bhutan introduced a minimum wage. DB2014 No reform as measured by Doing Business. Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 95 EMPLOYING WORKERS What are the details? The data on employing workers reported here for public officials. Employment laws and regulations as Bhutan are based on a detailed survey of employment well as secondary sources are reviewed to ensure regulations that is completed by local lawyers and accuracy. Rigidity of employment index The rigidity of employment index measures 3 areas of labor regulation: difficulty of hiring, rigidity of hours and difficulty of redundancy. Difficulty of hiring index The difficulty of hiring index measures whether fixed- worker. (The average value added per worker is the term contracts are prohibited for permanent tasks; the ratio of an economy’s gross national income per capita maximum cumulative duration of fixed-term contracts; to the working-age population as a percentage of the and the ratio of the minimum wage for a trainee or total population.) first-time employee to the average value added per Difficulty of hiring index Data Fixed-term contracts prohibited for permanent tasks? No Maximum length of a single fixed-term contract (months) No limit Maximum length of fixed-term contracts, including renewals (months) No limit Minimum wage for a 19-year old worker or an apprentice (US$/month) 0.0 Ratio of minimum wage to value added per worker 0.00 Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 96 EMPLOYING WORKERS Rigidity of hours index The rigidity of hours index has 5 components: whether respond to a seasonal increase in production; and there are restrictions on night work; whether there are whether the average paid annual leave for a worker restrictions on weekly holiday work; whether the with 1 year of tenure, a worker with 5 years and a workweek can consist of 5.5 days or is more than 6 worker with 10 years is more than 26 working days or days; whether the workweek can extend to 50 hours or fewer than 15 working days. more (including overtime) for 2 months a year to Rigidity of hours index Data Standard workday in manufacturing (hours) 8 hours 50-hour workweek allowed for 2 months a year in case of a seasonal Yes increase in production? Maximum working days per week 6.0 Premium for night work (% of hourly pay) in case of continuous 0% operations Premium for work on weekly rest day (% of hourly pay) in case of 0% continuous operations Major restrictions on night work in case of continuous operations? No Major restrictions on weekly holiday in case of continuous operations? No Paid annual leave for a worker with 1 year of tenure (in working days) 9.0 Paid annual leave for a worker with 5 years of tenure (in working days) 18.0 Paid annual leave for a worker with 10 years of tenure (in working days) 18.0 Paid annual leave (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years of tenure, in 15.0 working days) Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 97 EMPLOYING WORKERS Difficulty of redundancy index The difficulty of redundancy index has 8 components: worker; whether the employer needs approval from a whether redundancy is disallowed as a basis for third party to terminate a group of 9 redundant terminating workers; whether the employer needs to workers; whether the law requires the employer to notify a third party (such as a government agency) to reassign or retrain a worker before making the worker terminate 1 redundant worker; whether the employer redundant; whether priority rules apply for needs to notify a third party to terminate a group of 9 redundancies; and whether priority rules apply for redundant workers; whether the employer needs reemployment. approval from a third party to terminate 1 redundant Difficulty of redundancy index Data Dismissal due to redundancy allowed by law? Yes Third-party notification if 1 worker is dismissed? Yes Third-party approval if 1 worker is dismissed? No Third-party notification if 9 workers are dismissed? Yes Third-party approval if 9 workers are dismissed? No Retraining or reassignment obligation before redundancy? No Priority rules for redundancies? No Priority rules for reemployment? No Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 98 EMPLOYING WORKERS Redundancy cost The redundancy cost indicator measures the cost of notice requirements and severance payments advance notice requirements, severance payments and applicable to a worker with 1 year of tenure, a worker penalties due when terminating a redundant worker, with 5 years and a worker with 10 years is used to expressed in weeks of salary. The average value of assign the score. Redundancy cost indicator Data Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 1 year of tenure, in salary 5.3 weeks) Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 5 years of tenure, in 9.3 salary weeks) Notice period for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 10 years of tenure, in 10.3 salary weeks) Notice period for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years 8.3 of tenure, in salary weeks) Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 1 year of tenure, in 0.0 salary weeks) Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 5 years of tenure, in 0.0 salary weeks) Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (for a worker with 10 years of tenure, in 0.0 salary weeks) Severance pay for redundancy dismissal (average for workers with 1, 5 and 10 years 0.0 of tenure, in salary weeks) Source: Doing Business database. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 99 DATA NOTES The indicators presented and analyzed in Doing rounds of verification, leading to revisions or Business measure business regulation and the expansions of the information collected. protection of property rights—and their effect on businesses, especially small and medium-size domestic firms. First, the indicators document the complexity of ECONOMY CHARACTERISTICS regulation, such as the number of procedures to start a business or to register and transfer commercial property. Second, they gauge the time and cost to Gross national income per capita achieve a regulatory goal or comply with regulation, such as the time and cost to enforce a contract, go Doing Business 2014 reports 2012 income per capita through bankruptcy or trade across borders. Third, as published in the World Bank’s World Development they measure the extent of legal protections of Indicators 2013. Income is calculated using the Atlas property, for example, the protections of investors method (current U.S. dollars). For cost indicators against looting by company directors or the range of expressed as a percentage of income per capita, assets that can be used as collateral according to 2012 gross national income (GNI) in U.S. dollars is secured transactions laws. Fourth, a set of indicators used as the denominator. GNI data were not documents the tax burden on businesses. Finally, a set available from the World Bank for Afghanistan, The of data covers different aspects of employment Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Brunei Darussalam, regulation. The 11 sets of indicators measured in Djibouti, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Doing Business were added over time, and the sample Myanmar, New Zealand, Oman, San Marino, the of economies expanded. Syrian Arab Republic, West Bank and Gaza, and the Republic of Yemen. In these cases GDP or GNP per The data for all sets of indicators in Doing Business 2 capita data and growth rates from other sources, 2014 are for June 2013. such as the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook database and the Economist Intelligence Unit, were used. Methodology Region and income group The Doing Business data are collected in a standardized way. To start, the Doing Business team, Doing Business uses the World Bank regional and with academic advisers, designs a questionnaire. The income group classifications, available at questionnaire uses a simple business case to ensure http://data.worldbank.org/about/country- classifications. The World Bank does not assign comparability across economies and over time—with regional classifications to high-income economies. assumptions about the legal form of the business, its For the purpose of the Doing Business report, high- size, its location and the nature of its operations. income OECD economies are assigned the “regional” Questionnaires are administered to more than 10,200 classification OECD high income. Figures and tables local experts, including lawyers, business consultants, presenting regional averages include economies accountants, freight forwarders, government officials from all income groups (low, lower middle, upper and other professionals routinely administering or middle and high income). advising on legal and regulatory requirements (table Population 21.2). These experts have several rounds of interaction with the Doing Business team, involving conference Doing Business 2014 reports midyear 2012 calls, written correspondence and visits by the team. population statistics as published in World For Doing Business 2014 team members visited 33 Development Indicators 2013. economies to verify data and recruit respondents. The data from questionnaires are subjected to numerous The Doing Business methodology offers several advantages. It is transparent, using factual information about what laws and regulations say and allowing 2 The data for paying taxes refer to January – December 2012. multiple interactions with local respondents to clarify Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 100 potential misinterpretations of questions. Having entrepreneurs reported in the World Bank Enterprise representative samples of respondents is not an issue; Surveys or other perception surveys. Doing Business is not a statistical survey, and the texts This year Doing Business completed subnational of the relevant laws and regulations are collected and studies in Colombia, Italy and the city of Hargeisa answers checked for accuracy. The methodology is (Somaliland) and is currently updating indicators in inexpensive and easily replicable, so data can be Egypt, Mexico and Nigeria. Doing Business also collected in a large sample of economies. Because published regional studies for the g7+ and the East standard assumptions are used in the data collection, African Community. The g7+ group is a country- comparisons and benchmarks are valid across owned and country-led global mechanism established economies. Finally, the data not only highlight the in April 2010 to monitor, report and draw attention to extent of specific regulatory obstacles to business but the unique challenges faced by fragile states. The also identify their source and point to what might be member countries included in the report are reformed. Information on the methodology for each Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Doing Business topic can be found on the Doing Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Business website at Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology. Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Timor-Leste and Togo. Limits to what is measured The subnational studies point to differences in business regulation and its implementation—as well as The Doing Business methodology has 5 limitations that in the pace of regulatory reform—across cities in the should be considered when interpreting the data. First, same economy. For several economies subnational the collected data refer to businesses in the economy’s studies are now periodically updated to measure largest business city (which in some economies differs change over time or to expand geographic coverage from the capital) and may not be representative of to additional cities. This year that is the case for all the regulation in other parts of the economy. To address subnational studies published. this limitation, subnational Doing Business indicators were created (box 21.1). Second, the data often focus on a specific business form—generally a limited liability company (or its legal equivalent) of a specified Changes in what is measured size—and may not be representative of the regulation The methodology for 2 indicator sets—trading across on other businesses, for example, sole proprietorships. borders and paying taxes—was updated this year. For Third, transactions described in a standardized case trading across borders, documents that are required scenario refer to a specific set of issues and may not purely for purposes of preferential treatment are no represent the full set of issues a business encounters. longer included in the list of documents (for example, Fourth, the measures of time involve an element of a certificate of origin if the use is only to qualify for a judgment by the expert respondents. When sources preferential tariff rate under trade agreements). For indicate different estimates, the time indicators paying taxes, the value of fuel taxes is no longer reported in Doing Business represent the median included in the total tax rate because of the difficulty values of several responses given under the of computing these taxes in a consistent way across all assumptions of the standardized case. economies covered. The fuel tax amounts are in most cases very small, and measuring these amounts is Finally, the methodology assumes that a business has often complicated because they depend on fuel full information on what is required and does not consumption. Fuel taxes continue to be counted in the waste time when completing procedures. In practice, number of payments. completing a procedure may take longer if the business lacks information or is unable to follow up In a change involving several indicator sets, the rule promptly. Alternatively, the business may choose to establishing that each procedure must take at least 1 disregard some burdensome procedures. For both day was removed for procedures that can be fully reasons the time delays reported in Doing Business completed online in just a few hours. This change 2014 would differ from the recollection of affects the time indicator for starting a business, Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 101 dealing with construction permits and registering with one another, while the distance to frontier property. For procedures that can be fully completed measure benchmarks economies to the frontier in 3 online, the duration is now set at half a day rather than regulatory practice, measuring the absolute distance to a full day. the best performance on each indicator. Both measures can be used for comparisons over time. The threshold for the total tax rate introduced in 2011 When compared across years, the distance to frontier for the purpose of calculating the ranking on the ease measure shows how much the regulatory environment of paying taxes was updated. All economies with a for local entrepreneurs in each economy has changed total tax rate below the threshold (which is calculated over time in absolute terms, while the ease of doing and adjusted on a yearly basis) receive the same business ranking can show only relative change. ranking on the total tax rate indicator. The threshold is not based on any economic theory of an “optimal tax Ease of doing business rate” that minimizes distortions or maximizes efficiency The ease of doing business index ranks economies in the tax system of an economy overall. Instead, it is from 1 to 189. For each economy the ranking is mainly empirical in nature, set at the lower end of the calculated as the simple average of the percentile distribution of tax rates levied on medium-size rankings on each of the 10 topics included in the index enterprises in the manufacturing sector as observed in Doing Business 2014: starting a business, dealing through the paying taxes indicators. This reduces the with construction permits, getting electricity, bias in the indicators toward economies that do not registering property, getting credit, protecting need to levy significant taxes on companies like the investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, Doing Business standardized case study company enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. The because they raise public revenue in other ways—for employing workers indicators are not included in this example, through taxes on foreign companies, through year’s aggregate ease of doing business ranking. taxes on sectors other than manufacturing or from natural resources (all of which are outside the scope of Construction of the ease of doing business index the methodology). This year the threshold is 25,5%. Here is one example of how the ease of doing business index is constructed. In Denmark it takes 4 procedures, 5.5 days and 0.2% of annual income per capita in fees Data challenges and revisions to open a business. The minimum capital requirement Most laws and regulations underlying the Doing is 24% of annual income per capita. On these 4 Business data are available on the Doing Business indicators Denmark ranks in the 12th, 11th, 1st and website at http://www.doingbusiness.org. All the 79th percentiles. So on average Denmark ranks in the sample questionnaires and the details underlying the 25th percentile on the ease of starting a business. It indicators are also published on the website. Questions ranks in the 21st percentile on getting credit, 19th on the methodology and challenges to data can be percentile on paying taxes, 27th percentile on submitted through the website’s “Ask a Question” enforcing contracts, 5th percentile on resolving function at http://www.doingbusiness.org. insolvency and so on. Higher rankings indicate simpler regulation and stronger protection of property rights. Ease of doing business and distance to The simple average of Denmark’s percentile rankings frontier on all topics is 17th. When all economies are ordered Doing Business 2014 presents results for 2 aggregate by their average percentile rankings, Denmark stands measures: the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing at 5 in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business and the distance to frontier measure. The business. ease of doing business ranking compares economies More complex aggregation methods—such as 3 For getting electricity the rule that each procedure must take a principal components and unobserved components— minimum of 1 day still applies because in practice there are no yield a ranking nearly identical to the simple average cases in which procedures can be fully completed online in less than a day. For example, even though in some cases it is possible to apply for an electricity connection online, additional requirements mean that the process cannot be completed in less than 1 day. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 102 4 used by Doing Business. Thus, Doing Business uses 58 on enforcing contracts, 116 on dealing with the simplest method: weighting all topics equally and, construction permits and 145 on getting electricity. within each topic, giving equal weight to each of the Variation in performance across the indicator sets is topic components. not at all unusual. It reflects differences in the degree If an economy has no laws or regulations covering a of priority that government authorities give to specific area—for example, insolvency—it receives a particular areas of business regulation reform and the “no practice” mark. Similarly, an economy receives a ability of different government agencies to deliver “no practice” or “not possible” mark if regulation exists tangible results in their area of responsibility. but is never used in practice or if a competing Distance to frontier measure regulation prohibits such practice. Either way, a “no practice” mark puts the economy at the bottom of the A drawback of the ease of doing business ranking is ranking on the relevant indicator. that it can measure the regulatory performance of economies only relative to the performance of others. The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. It It does not provide information on how the absolute does not account for an economy’s proximity to large quality of the regulatory environment is improving markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other over time. Nor does it provide information on how than services related to trading across borders and large the gaps are between economies at a single getting electricity), the strength of its financial system, point in time. the security of property from theft and looting, macroeconomic conditions or the strength of The distance to frontier measure is designed to underlying institutions. address both shortcomings, complementing the ease of doing business ranking. This measure illustrates the Variability of economies’ rankings across topics distance of an economy to the “frontier,” and the Each indicator set measures a different aspect of the change in the measure over time shows the extent to business regulatory environment. The rankings of an which the economy has closed this gap. The frontier is economy can vary, sometimes significantly, across a score derived from the most efficient practice or indicator sets. The average correlation coefficient highest score achieved on each of the component between the 10 indicator sets included in the indicators in 10 Doing Business indicator sets aggregate ranking is 0.38, and the coefficients (excluding the employing workers indicators) by any between any 2 sets of indicators range from 0.18 economy. In starting a business, for example, Canada (between getting electricity and getting credit) to 0.58 and New Zealand have achieved the highest (between trading across borders and resolving performance on the number of procedures required (1) insolvency and between trading across borders and and on the time (0.5 days), Denmark and Slovenia on getting electricity). These correlations suggest that the cost (0% of income per capita) and Chile, Zambia economies rarely score universally well or universally and 99 other economies on the paid-in minimum badly on the indicators. capital requirement (0% of income per capita) (table 22.2). Consider the example of Canada. It stands at 19 in the aggregate ranking on the ease of doing business. Its Calculating the distance to frontier for each economy ranking is 2 on starting a business, 4 on protecting involves 2 main steps. First, individual indicator scores investors, and 8 on paying taxes. But its ranking is only are normalized to a common unit: except for the total tax rate, each of the 31 component indicators y is rescaled to (max − y)/(max − min), with the minimum 4 See Simeon Djankov, Darshini Manraj, Caralee McLiesh and Rita Ramalho, “Doing Business Indicators: Why Aggregate, and How to value (min) representing the frontier—the highest Do It” (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005). Principal components performance on that indicator across all economies and unobserved components methods yield a ranking nearly since 2003 or the first year the indicator was collected. 5 identical to that from the simple average method because both these methods assign roughly equal weights to the topics, since the For the total tax rate, consistent with the calculation of pairwise correlations among indicators do not differ much. An alternative to the simple average method is to give different weights to the topics, depending on which are considered of more or less 5 Even though scores for the distance to frontier are calculated from importance in the context of a specific economy. 2005, data from as early as 2003 are used to define the frontier Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 103 the rankings, the frontier is defined as the total tax rate Economies that improved the most across 3 or at the 15th percentile of the overall distribution of more Doing Business topics in 2012/13 total tax rates for all years. Second, for each economy Doing Business 2014 uses a simple method to calculate the scores obtained for individual indicators are which economies improved the most in the ease of aggregated through simple averaging into one doing business. First, it selects the economies that in distance to frontier score, first for each topic and then 2012/13 implemented regulatory reforms making it across all topics. An economy’s distance to frontier is easier to do business in 3 or more of the 10 topics indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents included in this year’s ease of doing business ranking. 6 the lowest performance and 100 the frontier. Twenty-nine economies meet this criterion: Azerbaijan, The maximum (max) and minimum (min) observed Belarus, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Djibouti, values are computed for all economies included in the Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, the Doing Business sample since 2003 and for all years former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malaysia, (from 2003 to 2013). To mitigate the effects of extreme Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, outliers in the distributions of the rescaled data (very Panama, the Philippines, the Republic of Congo, few economies need 694 days to complete the Romania, the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, procedures to start a business, but many need 9 days), Ukraine, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates. th the maximum (max) is defined as the 95 percentile of Second, Doing Business sorts these economies on the the pooled data for all economies and all years for increase in their distance to frontier measure from the each indicator. The exceptions are the getting credit, previous year using comparable data. protecting investors and resolving insolvency Selecting the economies that implemented regulatory indicators, whose construction precludes outliers. In reforms in at least 3 topics and improved the most in addition, the cost to export and cost to import for each the distance to frontier measure is intended to year are divided by the GDP deflator, so as to take the highlight economies with ongoing, broadbased reform general price level into account when benchmarking programs. The criterion for identifying the top these absolute-cost indicators across economies with improvers was changed from last year. The different inflation trends. The base year for the deflator improvement in ease of doing business ranking is no is 2013 for all economies. longer used. The improvement in the distance to The difference between an economy’s distance to frontier measure is used instead because under this frontier score in any previous year and its score in measure economies are sorted according to their abs- 2013 illustrates the extent to which the economy has olute improvement instead of relative improvement. closed the gap to the frontier over time. And in any given year the score measures how far an economy is from the highest performance at that time. Take Colombia, which has a score of 70.5 on the distance to frontier measure for 2014. This score indicates that the economy is 29.5 percentage points away from the frontier constructed from the best performances across all economies and all years. Colombia was further from the frontier in 2009, with a score of 66.2. The difference between the scores shows an improvement over time. The distance to frontier measure can also be used for comparisons across economies in the same year, complementing the ease of doing business ranking. For example, Colombia stands at 63 this year in the ease of doing business ranking, while Peru, which is 6 Doing Business reforms making it more difficult to do business are 29.3 percentage points from the frontier, stands at 42. subtracted from the total number of those making it easier to do business. Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 105 RESOURCES ON THE DOING BUSINESS WEBSITE Current features Doing Business reforms News on the Doing Business project Short summaries of DB2014 business regulation http://www.doingbusiness.org reforms, lists of reforms since DB2008 and a ranking simulation tool Rankings http://www.doingbusiness.org/reforms/ How economies rank—from 1 to 189 http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings/ Historical data Customized data sets since DB2004 Data http://www.doingbusiness.org/custom-query/ All the data for 189 economies—topic rankings, indicator values, lists of regulatory procedures and Law library details underlying indicators Online collection of business laws and regulations http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/ relating to business and gender issues http://www.doingbusiness.org/law-library/ Reports http://wbl.worldbank.org/ Access to Doing Business reports as well as subnational and regional reports, reform case Contributors studies and customized economy and regional More than 10,200 specialists in 189 economies profiles who participate in Doing Business http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports/ http://www.doingbusiness.org/contributors/doing- business/ Methodology The methodologies and research papers Entrepreneurship data underlying Doing Business Data on business density for 139 economies http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology/ http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/e ntrepreneurship Research Abstracts of papers on Doing Business topics and Doing Business iPhone App related policy issues Doing Business at a Glance App presents the full http://www.doingbusiness.org/research/ report, rankings and highlights http://www.doingbusiness.org/specialfeatures/ iphone Doing Business 2014 Bhutan 106