Philippines falls 11 places in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report, gov’t demands correction

November 1, 2018

The World Bank said Wednesday the Philippines' fell 11 places in its Ease of Doing Business report to 124th place from 113th last year.

In its report, the World Bank said although "minority investor protections were strengthened by increasing shareholders' rights and role in major corporate decisions and clarifying ownership and control structures... In the area of Starting a Business, the Philippines simplified tax registration and business licensing processes, but increased tax registration costs."

"Trading Across borders was made difficult by increasing the number of inspections for importing, thereby increasing the average time for border compliance," the World Bank added.

In terms of scores in the Ease of Doing Business, the Philippines tallied 57.68 from 56.32.

In a joint statement, the finance and trade departments "demand that the World Bank review the Philippines' rating, and make a correction immediately given our country's increases in the Ease of Doing Business scores, which was unfortunately, offset by the grossly inaccurate and understated findings in the Getting Credit indicator of the report."

The finance and trade departments said :"The Philippines registered a +1.36 increase in the Ease of Doing Business score at 57.68 yet received a lower ranking."

"The correction should be done as soon as the Report could unduly compromise the Philippines' standing among the investment community and negatively impact the country's development, considering that this document is widely used as reference by investors and survey organizations," the joint statement said.

The decline in rankings was due to the Philippines' Getting Credit indicator where the Ease of Doing Business Score fell from 30 to five.

This was due to "the failure of the World Bank's survey team to gather the correct information on the country's credit information database." DMS