Doing Business Part 2

In all, 181 economies were ranked in the 2011 report, which is the eighth. The report indexed 11 areas of business life as of June 1.

The full report is on a dedicated Web site. The report called on the laws of each country and some 8,200 specialists who made the assessments.

"A fundamental premise of 'Doing Business' is that economic activity requires good rules — rules that establish and clarify property rights and reduce the cost of resolving disputes; rules that increase the predictability of economic interactions and provide contractual partners with certainty and protection against abuse." said the report.  "The objective is regulations designed to be efficient, accessible to all and simple in their implementation. 'Doing Business' gives higher scores in some areas for stronger property rights and investor protections, such as stricter disclosure requirements in related-party transactions."

The authors said the report takes the perspective of smaller companies who must deal with the local laws and regulations. Doing business remains easiest in the high-income economies, it said. Of the top 25 economies, 18 made it easier to do business during the year covered by the report, it said.

Kazakhstan was the economy listed as improving the most, followed by Rwanda and Perú.  The report is full of charts and citations to additional information and makes it clear that the goal is to encourage governments to make business easier.

Panamá, of course, was tops in the isthmus at 72nd place with El Salvador at 86, Guatemala at 101 and Nicaragua at 117.

Honduras trailed Costa Rica at 131.