Once again, New Zealand has topped a World Bank survey of business-friendly countries.

In January of last year, the World Bank rated 155 economies and confirmed New Zealand was number one as the easiest place to do business.

In the survey, Singapore was second, United States rated third and Australia sixth. The least business-friendly country was Zimbabwe, which placed last.

The World Bank said all the top-ranking countries regulated businesses, but they did so in less costly and troublesome ways.

The five Scandinavian countries of Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and Sweden rated between five and 15.

The bank said they did not regulate "too little", but had simple regulations allowing businesses to be productive and focused intervention where it counted, which was in the protection of property rights and to provide social services.

The simplicity in which people could do business in a country was in relation employment, the World Bank said. When the survey was being done, the country of New Zealand had 4.7 per cent unemployment, while Greece, with the worst country rating of 80 by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), had nearly 11 per cent unemployment.

New Zealand performed consistently well across all 10 indicators for the survey. It was number one for ease of property registration and investor protection, second for dealing with licenses and fourth for starting up a business, hiring and firing, and contract enforcement.

It ranked number 15 for across border trading, 16th for paying taxes and 21st for closing a business.

During the year of the survey, New Zealand no major regulatory reforms were introduced.

While a good number of countries performed poorly because they lagged behind in encouraging business with regulatory reform, Caralee McLiesh, a senior economist on the World Bank's Doing Business project said that New Zealand had been one of the more "aggressive reformers" over the past 10-15 years.

The World Bank had been speaking to the New Zealand Government over changes it had made or was making, but Ms. McLiesh said it was difficult to pinpoint any areas that were a major weakness.

"We know there are very various other plans under way for continuing to improve and streamline regulations, largely through the use of electronic services of government. . . and combining the different government services and agencies so an entrepreneur can face one point of contact for government rather than many."

The World Bank said it took a "leap of faith even in the best circumstances" to start a business, and that countries should make it more easier, not more difficult, for entrepreneurs to set up companies and create jobs that would be beneficial for their national economies.

The Finance Minister of New Zealand, Michael Cullen, hailed the result, stating "That New Zealand should compare so well internationally is a credit to the quality of our regulatory regime and to the government's economic management," he said in a statement.

If you would like more information regarding asset protection, trusts, family limited partnerships or the subject of this article please call or email our office.