DHAKA: Singapore and Hong Kong rank the world’s best places to run a business, while mainland China remains far down the list, according to the World Bank’s annual competitiveness survey on Tuesday.

The South-east Asian entrepots and finance centres topped the survey for the eighth straight year, with New Zealand, the United States and Denmark rounding out the top five, as a year ago.

The lower ranks of the 189-country list were populated with African countries like Chad, the Central African Republic and Libya holding.

But a rising African country, Rwanda, took honours as the most improved since 2005, praised for its efforts to boost property registration and for simplifying trading and tax procedures.

China, which was furious to receive a ranking of 91 last year and has pressured the World Bank to drop the 11-year-old study, fell five notches this year to 96th place and was leapfrogged by Russia.

BDST: 1629 HRS, OCT 29, 2013
RoR/RK