Hungary, Estonia and Singapore topped the rankings of the World Bank’s new Business Ready 2024 report, a replacement for the Doing Business report that was terminated amid much controversy in 2021. 

Business Ready scored 50 countries from both the developing and developed world across three key pillars: regulatory framework, public services and operational efficiency.

Analysis for the report was supported by the survey responses of more than 29,000 businesses, as well as the insights of more than 2500 business climate experts.

The leading country in the regulatory framework pillar was Hungary, returning a score of 78.23 points. The scoring gap between the economies placing first and 10th for regulations is the narrowest of any pillar, as Hungary in first and Croatia in 10th were only separated by 4.75 points. This compares to the 8.8-point gap in the public services category and the even larger difference of 14.55 points between Singapore and Vietnam for operational efficiency.

Norman Loazya, director at the World Bank Global Indicators Group which oversees Business Ready, tells fDi that the “scores that we find for regulatory framework are higher than the scores that we find for public services, which means that it’s easier to enact good regulations than to put in place the public services that are needed”.

Estonia ranked first for public services, registering 73.31 points, with the country also sitting in the top 10 for operational efficiency. According to the report, this “reflects Estonia’s ability to translate its regulatory framework into efficient public services and a business environment where firms experience the ease of compliance with the regulations and the effective use of public services”.

Singapore was the top destination for operational efficiency with 87.33 points. The average score in this pillar was the highest but operational efficiency also carried the greatest scoring variation, which “indicates uneven performance levels among top-performing economies”, the report notes. 

While the report demonstrates a positive link between the higher pillar scores and GDP per capita, the top 10 section of each pillar still features both middle-income and low-income countries.

Among the best performers, Rwanda is part of the top 10 economies for public services provision and ranks third for operational efficiency. Georgia is also a stand-out, positioned as the third-placed country for regulatory framework and second behind Singapore in the operational efficiency pillar.

Indermit Singh Gill, chief economist and senior vice-president for development economics at the World Bank, says results like these show “a country need not be wealthy to create a good business environment”.

In relation to FDI, the report suggests business climates “with more efficient regulations and public services tend to attract more FDI”.

According to fDi Markets, a greenfield investment monitor, the lead destinations in the Business Ready report fare strongly as FDI recipients.

Hungary has developed into a sort of mega-investment net in past years, catching several projects worth more than $1bn in recent years, including a €7.34bn battery plant announced by China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology. Overall, foreign investors announced greenfield FDI projects worth more than $34bn since 2020, according to fDi Markets, second only to Poland and Romania in emerging Europe. 

Estonia and Singapore also posted strong FDI performance in recent years. In 2023, Estonia received 28 FDI projects, the highest since 2008, worth $895m; Singapore 410, the highest since 2018, worth $10.9bn, fDi Markets figures show.