Hong Kong has slipped from fourth to seventh on the World Bank's scale for ease of doing business, partly because it takes 230 days before a typical construction warehouse business has jumped through enough bureaucratic hoops to start operations. Top of the list is New Zealand, then Singapore, followed by the US and Canada. The mainland finished 91st out of the 155 countries surveyed but was still the highest out of the world's emerging economies. International Finance Corporation (IFC) spokesman Desmond Dodd said Hong Kong was still an easy place to do business, with the drop representing the competitiveness of the top 10. 'Hong Kong, on a global scale, is still a very competitive place, and there are some factors, such as labour and taxation flexibility, where it leads the world,' he said. While the mainland remained in the bottom third, Mr Dodd said it had streamlined its administrative areas considerably. 'China does rank quite well when you compare it to Indonesia at 115th and India at 116th,' he said. Companies still find it difficult to secure loans in China because banks do not have a proper way of uncovering information on potential borrowers. Construction was chosen as the industry to test the length of time taken to start a company from scratch because of the competing economic and government pressures. On one hand is the entrepreneur, demanding a quick turnaround to make a profit. But at the same time the government is close by demanding compliance with licensing and safety regulations. The IFC broke this part of the survey down to regions, with Hong Kong finishing 21st out of 25 East Asian and Pacific Island economies. Surprisingly, Pacific island nations Kiribati and Micronesia came first and second, with South Korea third. 'The Pacific islands and Korea have developed a regulatory structure that is similar to the US and Australia that cuts through the time spent on red tape,' Mr Dodd said. A government spokesman said yesterday it would study and follow up on the report, adding that the administration conducted reviews regularly on ways to improve the business environment.