Doing Business in Saudi Arabia

Region	Middle East & North Africa
Income Category	High income
Population	28,082,541
GNI Per Capita (US$)	17,820

Doing Business 2013 Rank	Doing Business 2012 Rank	Change in Rank
22	23	1

Doing Business 2013 DTF** (% points)	Doing Business 2012 DTF** (% points)	Improvement in DTF** (% points)
71.9	71.0	0.9

Topic Rankings	DB 2013 Rank	DB 2012 Rank	Change in Rank
Starting a Business	78	73	-5
Dealing with Construction Permits	32	28	-4
Getting Electricity	12	12	No change
Registering Property	12	11	-1
Getting Credit	53	52	-1
Protecting Investors	19	17	-2
Paying Taxes	3	10	7
Trading Across Borders	36	29	-7
Enforcing Contracts	124	138	14
Resolving Insolvency	107	102	-5

Getting Credit

Info

Measures on credit information sharing and the legal rights of borrowers and lenders are shown below. The Legal Rights Index ranges from 0-10, with higher scores indicating that those laws are better designed to expand access to credit. The Credit Information Index measures the scope, access and quality of credit information available through public registries or private bureaus. It ranges from 0-6, with higher values indicating that more credit information is available from a public registry or private bureau.

DB 2013 Rank	53	DB 2012 Rank	52	Change in Rank	-1

DB 2013 DTF** (% points)	68.8	DB 2012 DTF** (% points)	68.8	Improvement in DTF** (% points)	0.0

Indicator	Saudi Arabia	Middle East & North Africa	OECD
This index measures the degree to which collateral and bankruptcy laws protect the rights of borrowers and lenders and thus facilitate lending. View methodology Strength of legal rights index (0-10)	5	3	7
This index measures rules and practices affecting the coverage, scope and accessibility of credit information available through either a public credit registry or a private credit bureau. View methodology Depth of credit information index (0-6)	6	4	5
This indicator reports the number of individuals and firms listed in a public credit registry with information on their borrowing history from the past 5 years. View methodology Public registry coverage (% of adults)	0.0	8.6	10.2
This indicator reports the number of individuals and firms listed by a private credit bureau with information on their borrowing history from the past 5 years. View methodology Private bureau coverage (% of adults)	33.3	9.7	67.4

Depth of credit information index (0-6)	Private credit bureau	Public credit registry	Score
Are data on both firms and individuals distributed?	Yes	No	1
Are both positive and negative data distributed?	Yes	No	1
Does the registry distribute credit information from retailers, trade creditors or utility companies as well as financial institutions?	Yes	No	1
Are more than 2 years of historical credit information distributed?	Yes	No	1
Is data on all loans below 1% of income per capita distributed?	Yes	No	1
Is it guaranteed by law that borrowers can inspect their data in the largest credit registry?	Yes	No	1
Score ("yes" to either public bureau or private registry)			6

Strength of legal rights index (0-10)
Can any business use movable assets as collateral while keeping possession of the assets; and any financial institution accept such assets as collateral ?	Yes
Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in a single category of movable assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral?	Yes
Does the law allow businesses to grant a non possessory security right in substantially all of its assets, without requiring a specific description of collateral?	No
May a security right extend to future or after-acquired assets, and may it extend automatically to the products, proceeds or replacements of the original assets ?	No
Is a general description of debts and obligations permitted in collateral agreements; can all types of debts and obligations be secured between parties; and can the collateral agreement include a maximum amount for which the assets are encumbered?	No
Is a collateral registry in operation, that is unified geographically and by asset type, with an electronic database indexed by debtor's names?	No
Are secured creditors paid first (i.e. before general tax claims and employee claims) when a debtor defaults outside an insolvency procedure?	Yes
Are secured creditors paid first (i.e. before general tax claims and employee claims) when a business is liquidated?	No
Are secured creditors either not subject to an automatic stay on enforcement when a debtor enters a court-supervised reorganization procedure, or does the law provides secured creditors with grounds for relief from an automatic stay or sets a time limit to it?	Yes
Does the law allow parties to agree in a collateral agreement that the lender may enforce its security right out of court, at the time a security interest is created?	Yes
Score (number of "yes" responses)	5

Coverage	Private credit bureau	Public credit registry
Number of individuals	6,213,258	0
Number of firms	49,100	0
Percent of total	33.3	0.0

** The distance to frontier (DTF) measure shows the distance of each economy to the "frontier," which represents the highest performance observed on each of the indicators across all economies included in Doing Business since each indicator was included in Doing Business. An economy’s distance to frontier is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest performance and 100 the frontier. Read more...

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Ease of Doing Business in
Saudi Arabia