Kosovo made the greatest advance of any state in the CEE/CIS region in the 2018 edition of the World Bank's Doing Business Report, and was the fourth mover globally. The small Balkan country was ranked 40th in the latest ranking released on October 31, improving its position by 20 places from a year ago.

The report assesses the ease of doing business across 190 economies worldwide. Doing Business 2018 is the 15th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. 

“Kosovo recorded three reforms making it easier to do business, including adopting a new law that establishes clear priority rules inside bankruptcy for secured creditors and clear grounds for relief from a stay for secured creditors during reorganisation procedures,” the report said. 

The World Bank singles out Kosovo’s July 2016 insolvency law as an example of the progress made in the last year. The new elements introduced by the law, which align Kosovo with international good practices, “not only streamline liquidation and reorganisation proceedings in Kosovo in general, but are also likely to shorten the timeframe for resolving insolvency,” the report says. 

The best marks were given in the areas of starting business and getting credit, in which Kosovo ranked 10th  and 12th respectively.

On the other hand, Kosovo performed worse than last year in the areas of protecting investors, registering property, paying taxes and enforcing contracts.

Kosovo was runner-up among the six Western Balkans countries, behind only Macedonia, which was placed 11th.