Singapore-style efficiency is reflected in its transport, logistics and communications infrastructure. With a corruption-free business culture, costs are transparent to all businesses.

Contrary to popular belief, efficiency, convenience and a high standard of living do not equate to higher costs in Singapore. In fact, it ranks as one of the most cost-competitive nations for doing business.

Singapore's cost competitiveness is also borne out by a World Bank research study "Doing Business - Benchmarking Business Regulations", which provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement comparable across more than 130 economies. They indicate the regulatory costs of business. In almost all indicators, Singapore measures well against regional averages and even OECD averages:

Starting a Business (2006)

The challenges of launching a business in Singapore are shown below through four measures: procedures required to establish a business, the associated time and cost, and the minimum capital requirement. Entrepreneurs can expect to go through 6 steps to launch a business over 6 days on average, at a cost equal to 0.8% of gross national income (GNI) per capita. There is no minimum deposit requirement to obtain a business registration number, compared with the regional average of 60.3% of GNI and the OECD average of 36.1% of GNI.

Hiring and Firing Workers (2006)

The flexibility or rigidity of labor regulations and laws in Singapore is shown below. Main indicators include:

• difficulty of hiring a new worker (Difficulty of Hiring Index),
• restrictions on expanding or contracting the number of working hours (Rigidity of Hours Index),
• difficulty and expense of dismissing a redundant worker (Difficulty of Firing),
• an average of the three indices (Rigidity of Employment Index), and
• cost of a redundant worker, expressed in weeks of wages (Firing Costs).

Enforcing Contracts (2006)

The ease or difficulty of enforcing commercial contracts in Singapore is measured below, using three indicators: the number of procedures counted from the moment the plaintiff files a lawsuit until actual payment, the associated time, and the cost (in court and attorney fees). 

Getting Credit (2006)

Main indicators:

• a Legal Rights Index, which measures the degree to which collateral and bankruptcy laws facilitate lending,
• a Credit Information Index, which measures rules affecting the scope, access, and quality of credit information,
• public credit registry coverage, and
• private credit bureau coverage.

Closing a Business (2006)

 Main indicators:

• average time to complete a procedure,
• cost of the bankruptcy proceedings, and
• the recovery rate, which calculates how many cents on the dollar claimants (creditors, tax authorities, and employees) recover from an insolvent firm.