Indonesia remains a difficult place for doing business as a report by the World Bank puts the country at 135th best in the world.

The survey, done by the World Bank and its financial arm, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), entitled “Doing Business 2007” saw Indonesia’s ranking at 135th out of 175 countries, as compared to 131st last year out of 155 nations measured.

These are Indonesia’s rankings broken down by the factors that make up doing business.

Ease of…	2006 rank	2005 rank
Starting a Business	161	161
Dealing with Licenses	131	129
Employing Workers	140	141
Registering Property	120	118
Getting Credit	83	76
Protecting Investors	60	58
Paying Taxes	133	129
Trading Across Borders	60	55
Enforcing Contracts	145	144
Closing a Business	136	126

Among the countries that make up the East Asia & Pacific category Indonesia is ranked 20th out of 23, with only the basket cases of Cambodia, Laos, and East Timor being worse places to do business. Meanwhile Singapore is number one best place to build a business, Hong Kong second, Thailand 3rd, and Malaysia is ranked 4th best. Of other Asean countries Vietnam is ranked 17th and the Philippines is 19th.

Indonesia saw improvement in its reduction of the time and cost needed to start a business, but in other areas such as registration and licensing, tax payment, employment, trade, financing and contract enforcement, the rankings barely moved.

While it now takes only 97 days, down from 151 days, to set up an enterprise in Indonesia, and at a reduced cost of 86.7%, as against 101.7% previously, of the country’s per capita income, it still takes almost a year to get through the tangle of licensing.

It also takes another month’s time each for the paying of taxes and for clearing customs, as well as almost two years to settle labour disputes.

While other countries have improved their attractiveness to investors by a considerable degree it appears that Indonesia has only made modest advances, and hence its continued poor performance in indicators such as this, which fail to highlight the benefits and advantages that the country has. Those weighing up the pros and cons of doing business in Indonesia will likely have much to ponder on in these figures.

Tags: Forecasts & Reports, Investment