World Bank Lauds Developing Nations’ Competitiveness Push

Singapore ranked at the top of the World Bank’s annual competitiveness study for a seventh straight year, while developing nations were found to be accelerating reforms making it easier to open and operate businesses.

“Business regulatory practices have been slowly converging as economies with initially poor performance narrow the gap with better performers,” the Washington-based lender said in its 2013 Doing Business report, released yesterday. “Among the 50 economies with the biggest improvements since 2005, the largest share -- a third -- are in sub-Saharan Africa.”