In the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report, titled Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform and published on Wednesday, Croatia slid 7 places compared to last year, and now ranks 58th out of 190 countries covered in the report, with a score of 71.40 points out of maximum 100.

The report, published annually by the World Bank, looks at measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies around the world.

In 2017, Croatia ranked 51st, having earned 77.70 points.

Croatia recorded the poorest performance in the areas of dealing with construction permits, plunging from 126th place in 2017 to 159th this year. Croatia also slid in the area of ease of starting a business – in 2017 it ranked 87th, while this year it was 123rd.

Croatia has improved performance in the ease of registering property, moving up eight places to rank 51st. It also moved up in the ease of getting electricity segment, from last year’s 75th place to 61st place this year.

Croatia also made progress in the area of paying taxes, which records the contributions and taxes a company is obligated to pay in a year, going up from 95th to 89th place.

Measured by the getting credit criterion, Croatia fell from 77th to 85th place. It also regressed in the protecting minority investors section, dropping from 29th to 38th place, and in the enforcing contracts section, slipping two places down compared to 2017 to rank 25th.

Croatia ranked best in trading across the borders, scoring the maximum 100 points and top position, just as it did last year.
Among Croatia’s biggest trading partners, Germany ranked 24th, Slovenia 40th, and Italy 51st, all sliding three to five places.

Overall, New Zealand, Singapore, and Denmark topped the ranking, unchanged from last year, while Hong Kong moved one place from 2017 to the fourth position, replacing South Korea, which dropped to fifth place.

Out of countries in the region, Serbia, ranking 48th, Montenegro (50), and Hungary (53) recorded better results than Croatia.

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