Brunei and Indonesia are among the most improved Asian economies for ease of doing business while Singapore has been replaced by New Zealand in first place overall, according to an influential World Bank report.
East Asia and the Pacific are home to two of the world's top 10 economies for ease of doing business -- Singapore and Hong Kong -- and two of the top 10 improvers, Brunei and Indonesia, according to Doing Business 2017.
The report on 190 economies compared measures and regulations affecting 10 areas of doing business including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
Oil-rich Brunei's most improved areas are getting electricity, resolving insolvency and enforcing contracts while Indonesia made great strides for starting a business, getting electricity and paying taxes. However, there are areas still in need of improvement. For instance, Indonesia's nationalistic regulations deter foreign direct investment (FDI).
Cambodia is the worst performer in East Asia and the Pacific for starting a business and dealing with construction permits, Myanmar fared the poorest in terms of getting credit, while Vietnam lags in ease of paying taxes.
Across the region, resolving insolvency was seen as a major weakness in terms of time, cost and inconsistent outcomes. Other areas of weakness are protection of minority investors from conflicts of interest, enforcement of contracts and getting credit, which involves the legal rights of borrowers and lenders with respect to secure transactions.
The best place to start a business is Hong Kong where it only takes only two procedures. The Philippines requires 16 procedures, Indonesia and Myanmar 11 but Thailand only five. Only three procedures are required in Taiwan and Singapore.
Thailand's biggest improvements were seen in starting a business and getting credit but the country has shown little progress in ease of enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
Stanley Kang, chairman of the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce in Thailand, said that open regulations in Singapore and New Zealand set them apart from the rest in Asia.
Asean, he suggested, should adopt similar regulations if its members want to attract more talent and FDI.
"Singapore and New Zealand, because of their small population size, have to adopt open business and financial regulations in order to attract talent and FDI their way and it has been working very well for them so far," he said. "South Korea has also improved in its ranking because of its deregulation policy."
Thailand has been working hard to improve ease of doing business and improved from 49th place to 46th this year. Further reform and deregulation along with the development of e-government are expected next year, said Mr Kang.
"CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) countries will grow by leaps and bounds in the near future because of global digitisation and these latecomers now have more room and opportunity to expand because of their relatively young populations which reflects in their GDP growth, but they still have a lot to improve in ease of doing business," he added.
This year's report also addressed gender inequality in the business world where women represent 49.6% of the population but only 40.8% of the formal workforce. Women have also faced higher barriers in starting a business or getting a job when compared to men.
Gender gaps not only persist but are getting wider, especially in terms of women's access to economic opportunities. In 155 economies, women do not have the same legal rights as men and they receive much less support for entrepreneurship.
In some economies, women must submit additional paperwork or authorisations from their husbands in order to open a business.
This gender gap in entrepreneurship has been estimated to contribute to an income loss of around 19% in South Asia.
This gender gap in entrepreneurship, however, does not seem to exist in Kota Bharu in Malaysia's Kelantan state, where over 70% of the entrepreneurs are women.
"Women are the driving force of the economy in Kelantan as the government of Malaysia has taken an initiative to encourage more women to do business including the introduction of many platforms including e-commerce, cross-border exhibitions and regular export acceleration missions to explore markets and opportunities in southern Thailand," Dzulkifli Mahmud, CEO of Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade) told Asia Focus.
"Matrade also has a special programme to support women in exporting. ... [We] help them with market intelligence before linking them with foreign buyers while bringing them to international exhibitions so that they can have first-hand business contact with foreign buyers."