Doing Business in Hong Kong

Annual Publication by Word Trade Bank

Doing Business is an annual reports published by World Trade Bank that describes how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations in Hong Kong. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business:

• Starting a business – Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
• Dealing with construction permits – Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse
• Getting electricity – procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed warehouse
• Registering property – Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate
• Getting credit – Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index
• Protecting investors – Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits
• Paying taxes – Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross profit
• Trading across borders – Number of documents, cost and time necessary to export and import
• Enforcing contracts – Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
• Resolving insolvency – The time, cost and recovery rate (%) under bankruptcy proceeding

In 2018, Hong Kong ranks number 5 out of 189 countries studied by the World Trade Bank.

Snapshot and Key Indicators