Cairo - US media mogul Walt Disney once said, "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing," which is what the Doing Business report has pushed several Middle Eastern countries to do for the past six years.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa compete to score better in the annual Doing Business report, published by the International Finance Corp, a World Bank group.

According to the Doing Business 2009 report, launched Wednesday worldwide, regulatory reforms have been accelerated in the region with improvements in the business start-up area taking place in nine countries.

In two-thirds of the region's economies, the report recorded 27 reforms from June 2007 to June 2008 that make it easier to do business.

While Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were ranked among the top 25 worldwide in ease of doing business, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) climbed eight positions to 46th in the latest report.

"UAE ranked much below Saudi Arabia because the environment there is encouraging to foreign investors, but the kingdom is making a lot of effort to ease procedures of local investments," Dahlia Khalifa, a co-author of the report, said from Washington during a video conference with reporters in Cairo and Saudi Arabia.

Countries in the region "continue to ease the regulatory burden of doing business until it became the region with the second-largest share of economies to make it easier to do business," Khalifa said.

The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have improved access to credit while Qatar and Kuwait slipped marginally and Oman maintained its ranking at 57th.

"I believe the improvement Egypt achieved in the getting credit indicator is the most important," said Ziad Bahaa el-Din, the non-executive chairman of the board of the Egyptian General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.

"It is the first time in three years that Egypt made progress in this area," Bahaa el-Din told reporters during the same press conference, attributing the progress to the introduction of credit bureaus in Egypt.

The country's first private credit bureau was introduced in August 2005 when the Central Bank of Egypt provisionally approved its establishment. However, it only got its operational licence in January this year.

Egypt, which was ranked last year as the world's top reformer of business regulations, is the only Middle Eastern country to be among the top 10 reformers.

"Small and medium-sized enterprises are key drivers of competition, growth and job creation, particularly in developing countries," Bahaa el-Din said, adding that Wednesday's report derived its importance from concentrating on areas that affect such businesses, citing a decrease in minimum capital required for starting a business and the ease of getting credit as examples.

The survey ranked 181 countries worldwide on the basis of the ease and difficulties local business people face in starting and managing businesses. It also compares the scores and rankings of all selected countries and serves as an standard by which governments and potential investors gauge countries that are more business-friendly in the world.

Singapore topped the global rankings on the overall regulatory ease of doing business for a third-consecutive year. New Zealand was the runner-up, followed by the United States, Hong Kong, Denmark and Britain.

Next year, a new indicator for infrastructure is to be introduced to the report while another for corruption would be included in the survey but would be published independently.

Countries in the region scored 6.1 to 1.5 in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2007, which evaluates perceptions of the public sector and scores countries on a scale from zero to 10 with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption. (dpa)