By Jane Han
Staff Reporter

President Lee Myung-bak, the former corporate CEO who is now beleaguered by a slumping economy and low approval rating, has his work cut out for him in honing his much-touted business-friendly policies, as a recent global survey indicates that the country's overall ``doing business'' ranking dived seven steps last year to No. 30.

In the 2008 World Bank's ``Doing Business'' survey released Thursday, Asia's third-largest economy fell behind most major or emerging economies in Asia, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

The annual poll ranked 178 economies ― from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe ― evaluating their regulations on business operations, covering the period April 2006 to June 2007. Countries were judged in ten categories, including starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, paying taxes, registering property and closing a business.

South Korea's strengths were in enforcing contracts and closing a business, as it ranked 10th and 11th in those categories, respectively. Its weakest was in employing workers and starting a business, as it was seated 131st and 110th, respectively.

Singapore was given an overall No. 1 ranking, followed by New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong, Denmark and Canada. Ranked last was Congo.

Lee has pledged multi-ranging policies that would strip red tape and other regulations that restrict local and foreign businesses operating here.

However, many of his proposed plans were shunned for being unfriendly to small- and medium-businesses.

Most recently, in a survey conducted by IMD, a global business school in Switzerland, South Korea slipped two notches to 31st in terms of its national competitiveness ranking among 55 countries worldwide.

jhan@koreatimes.co.kr