friendly Reforms by World Bank Group's Doing Business 2008 Publication" Dr.Ibrahim AI-Assaf, Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance, and its Governor at the World Bank Group, warmly welcomes the just-released World Bank Group publication “Doing Business 2008”, which has placed Saudi Arabia's overall ranking in doing business at 23d among 178 economies improving from 38 last year. Significantly, the report recognizes that Saudi Arabia was the top reformer worldwide in improving business start up procedures. and it ranked 7th among the top 10 reformers. Characterizing this as a dramatic improvement, the Minister remarked: "This recognition attests to the Kingdom's longstanding efforts to facilitate the role of private sector entrepreneurs." Minister Al-Assaf also highlighted the achievements and reforms that were introduced by the government to improve the business environment, including the recent elimination of the minimum capital requirement for establishing a business, which was previously set at SR 500,OOO and was the fifth largest minimum capital requirement in the world."This was certainly a major step forward and I welcome the fact that this flagship publication of the World Bank Group is giving credit where credit is due." --MORE
