Recent Development
The World Bank Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform report (“Report“) comparing business regulations for domestic firms in 190 countries was released on October 31, 2018. Turkey ranked 43rd in the global ease of doing business index, climbing 17 places from the previous year’s rankings.
What Does the Report Say?
The highlights of the Report in relation to Turkey are as follows:
- Turkey is one of the 10 top improvers due to its implementation of seven notable reforms involving institutional changes.
- Turkey ranked 26th place in protecting minority investors by scoring 71.67 out of 100 due to its laws and regulations on director liability, shareholder lawsuits and shareholder rights.
- The Report underlined that the development in the electronic processing of documents and the provision of additional information on governmental authorities’ websites ̶ such as regulations, fee schedules and pre-application requirements ̶ are the two significant indicators of Turkey’s improvement.
- Launching a business in Turkey is now easier and faster thanks to the removal of the paid-in minimum capital requirement and notarization requirements for corporate records of the companies.
- The Report remarked on the new developments for construction permits, such as publishing all pre-application requirements to obtain a construction permit online and strengthening the construction quality control by imposing stricter qualification requirements for professionals in charge of approving architectural plans. The Report named Turkey as an example for other counties for its training program designed especially for the development of the land registry offices.
- The Report commended Turkey on its new procedures for obtaining facility, secured creditors’ absolute priority over other claims, and access to credit information. The Report ranked Turkey as 32nd in the global rank of obtaining facilities.
- The introduction of the new electronic system for tax filing and payment was mentioned as markedly reducing regulatory complexity.
- Turkey was lauded for easing trading across borders through various incentives that reduce the time and cost of export and import.
- Turkey’s place in the ranking jumped to 19 in contract enforcement. Contract enforcement is deemed one of Turkey’s strengths, as the quality of the judicial processes scored 15 out of 18, with only seven other economies in the world scoring 15 or higher.
Conclusion
The Report highlights Turkey’s progress in ease of doing business despite regional turmoil.
