Australia was a relatively easy place to do business, the World Bank (WB) recently said in their Doing Business 2015 report.
The WB report said Australia was the 10th easiest place to do business in 2014 and 2013, of the 189 countries compared. The report focussed on one city from each country.
All countries became easier to do business last year, the report said.
However, a World Economic Forum survey of leaders early this year said doing business in Australia was overloaded with red tape.
According to the G20 agenda, a major focus of this year's meetings is "domestic measures to cut the cost of doing business and enhance countries’ ability to participate in global value chains can facilitate increased trade activity, fuelling economic growth."
While Australia (Sydney) was ranked well, the WEF's annual Global Competiveness Index dropped Australia by one place this year to 21. One factor included a "deteriorating macroeconomic situation".
Red tape and rigid labour regulations, including hiring and wages, added to the country’s barriers to business, the WEF report said.
“The business community cites labour regulations and bureaucratic red tape as being, respectively, the first and second most problematic factor for doing business [in Australia],” the WEF report said.
Data from 2014 edition of the Survey captured the opinions of over 14,000 business leaders in 148 economies between February and June 2014.
Australia on second page.
The same report notes Australia has a great banking sector and low public debt to Gross Domestic Product.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has consistently said the focus at Australia's first G20 Leaders' Summit would be matters of economic importance.
The WB report said too much focus was sometimes placed on fiscal policy: "gets much less attention but is equally — and, in some situations, even more — important for an economy’s success or failure is the nuts and bolts that hold the economy together and the plumbing that underlies the economy,” the Doing Business 2015 report said.
The WEF's report stated the world should not be complacent after the Global Financial Crisis.
"The risks to the global economic outlook remain very real... ensuring sustained growth in the long run will depend not on monetary policies, but on boosting the level of productivity of economies," the Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 said.
Over nine years, GDP growth had mixed results, with huge growth in China, solid growth in Australia and flat GDP growth in Japan and the United Kingdom.
