Minister Donohoe welcomes World Bank assessment that ‘Doing Business [in] 2018’ in Ireland now even easier  

31st October, 2017

 

 

The World Bank today released Doing Business 2018, its annual flagship publication which assesses the business and regulatory environment in 190 economies and ranks them in 10 areas of business regulation.

Results of Doing Business 2018

  • Ireland improved its ‘Ease of Doing Business’ ranking, rising one place to 17th out of 190 economies.
  • Ireland performs strongly in relation to its neighbours, ranking 4th in the Euro Area and 7th in the EU
  • Ireland’s overall score remained broadly the same, with a marginal decrease from last year.
  • Ireland improved or maintained its ranking relative to the other 189 economies in respect of seven of the ten indicators. Of particular note is Ireland’s ranking of fourth for the ‘Paying taxes’ indicator. This is the highest rating of any OECD high income economy.

 

In response to the result for Ireland, Minister for Finance and Ireland’s Governor at the World Bank, Paschal Donohoe, T.D., stated: ‘I welcome the improvement in our ranking, which is a positive reflection on the business environment in Ireland for small and medium-sized firms. The ease of doing business is a key pillar of Ireland’s competitiveness and as such I am particularly pleased with Ireland’s strong performance relative to our neighbours, with Ireland ranking 4th in the Euro Area and 7th in the EU overall’.

“This year’s report shows that while the conditions for entrepreneurship in Ireland are already favourable, there is always room to do more. We will be striving to strengthen our performance in individual areas that the Report seeks to measure and improve our ranking as time goes on. These reforms have a real and beneficial impact on economic growth and job creation in Ireland.

“On a broader scale, the Doing Business Report makes a valuable contribution to an improved business regulatory climate throughout the world as it encourages countries to measure themselves against the best performing economies and supports efforts to improve the efficiency of government worldwide.”

ENDS