Bank of Israel
Bank of IsraelIsrael news photo: Flash 90

A report by the World Bank has Israel listed in 40th place as a business-friendly location - two places below Israel's position in the Bank's 2013 report.

The report examines regulations, laws, customs, and other issues that either encourage or discourage entrepreneurs from doing business. The World Bank interprets Israel's position in 40th place out of a total of 189 countries to mean that doing business in Israel is “moderately difficult,” with numerous extraneous bureaucratic roadblocks preventing deals from being made and businesses expanding.

In another metric, the report found that Israel was in 53rd place in terms of opening businesses – including getting permits, licenses, and dealing with tax issues in order to import merchandise or equipment for the establishment of the business. In 2013, Israel was in 45th place in that metric. According to a separate report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it takes an average of 13 business days to open a new business in Israel, worse than the OECD average of 9.2 days.

It's also more difficult to get credit from Israeli banks in 2014 than it was in 2013. Israel ranked 36th in this year's report in terms of how easy it was for a small business to get credit, compared ot 30th place in the 2013 report.

The most business-friendly country in the World Bank report was Singapore, followed by New Zealand and Hong Kong. New Zealand residents have the easiest time establishing a new business, followed by residents of Canada and Macedonia, the report said.