NOV 2 — Malaysia has been ranked sixth in a survey on global ease of doing business.

This has to be good news.

I often think good things won’t come the way of our country, especially over the past one or two years. Many things have not come smoothly, as if the country has been cast with an evil spell: corruption index, freedom of speech index, competitiveness index, etc. We have not been doing well in all these.

Not even in the global ranking of our football team, at a pathetic 160th, below countries such as Tahiti or St Lucia.

Even The New York Times has poured scorn on us, that hardly anyone in Malaysia could be spared the scourge of robbery.

Now back to this No. 6 In The World.

When I first came across the headline, I was thinking it could be just a survey by a hardly heard of organisation, or a local one. Nothing special about it!

But on a second look, it was a World Bank survey report!

In the shadow of the fatal spell, I nevertheless grew sceptical. So I called up a friend at Pemuda and asked him what was so great about Malaysia that it deserved the sixth global ranking.

Pemuda is a high-level unit in the Prime Minister’s Department with the objective of promoting the efficiency of the country’s public services while creating a more conducive business environment.

He told me: “The report evaluates the level of ease of doing business of countries in the world. This is a yearly survey conducted by the World Bank to promote business and investment facilitation of countries, comparing the policies of countries and conducting visitations to companies to get a detailed picture of how each country is doing business.”

Over the past few years, Malaysia has made continuous adjustments and improvements based on the World Bank benchmarks and have seen its ranking significantly improved over the years.

For example, it used to take more than half a year to several years in the past for a company to be registered, build its manufacturing plant, operate, produce... Such a lengthy process will only increase the cost of operation and level of uncertainty, adversely affecting the preparedness of foreign investors to do business in this country.

From five or six years ago, Pemuda has worked hand in hand with the international trade and industry ministry to abolish some of the procedures to expedite the handling of applications, especially the online application and vetting procedures.

With the red tape drastically reduced, chances for government officials to intervene will also be reduced. Besides speedier handling of application cases, chances of corruption have also been brought down.

Indeed, efficiency has been remarkably improved. For instance, it only needs 15 minutes now to register a sole proprietorship company, one day for a private limited company and an average of 50 days from application to approval to build a factory.

There has also been a quantum leap in improvement to other parameters such as ease of financing.

So, what is the significance of being No, 6 in the world?

It shows Malaysia is a business-friendly country. This, coupled with our vast natural resources, relative social stability and the fact that English is widely spoken in the country, has made Malaysia more attractive to investors.

What I’m thinking is that, so long as we have the will to change our attitude and rectify our weaknesses, there is every possibility that we will change for the better.

If we squander our precious time and effort on senseless grumbling and war of words and get soaked up in negative sentiments, we will only sink further.

The World Bank ranking has opened our eyes to the fact that we can indeed break the evil spell. — Sin Chew Daily

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.