The Solomon Islands moved up ten points to 96 out of 183 economies this year on the ease of starting a business in the country, according to the World Bank ranking.

Photo by metroflags

A higher ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm, based on 9 topics, made up of a variety of indicators.

These include starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.

But while there is the 10 points upward movement on the ease of starting a business here, almost all topic rankings made negative moves in 2011.

According to the World Bank report, the only improvement on the nine topics was on the area of getting credit which shot up 78 points to 89 from 167 last year.

There was no movement in the enforcement of contracts.

In relations to procedures, it takes up to 17 days to get approval of a company name from the ministry of commerce and up to a month to register the name of company with the registrar of companies.

Other procedures take only a day or two.

The overall country performance in procedures is ranked 7, compared with other Melanesian Spearhead Group members.

Papua New Guinea sits on 6 and both Vanuatu and Fiji are on 8.

Source: (The World Bank)  http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/solomon%20islands/