Bill Gates. Pierre Suu/Getty Images

Singapore has the world’s most business-friendly regulatory environment, according to the World Bank.

Australia comes in 10th behind New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Denmark, Norway, the US, the UK and Finland.

While Australia maintained its global ranking, its regulatory environment got a bit more sticky for entrepreneurs.

According to the World Bank’s DTF (Distance To Frontier) score, which measures the distance of each economy to global best performance, Australia slipped to 80.66 from 80.7.

The rankings in the study, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, show which countries provide local entrepreneurs with the least regulatory road blocks.

The report focuses on regulations applying to small and medium-size domestic enterprises across 10 areas: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

Here’s the top 10 countries with the best environment for entrepreneurs.

“An economy’s success or failure depends on many variables; among these, often overlooked, are the nuts and bolts that facilitate enterprise and business,” says Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank.

“By this I mean the regulations that determine how easy it is to start a business, the speed and efficiency with which contracts are enforced, the paperwork needed for trade,and so on. Making improvements in these regulations is virtually costless, but it can play a transformative role in promoting growth and development.”

In Asia and the Pacific, countries continue to improve the business environment.

The region’s economies implemented 24 regulatory reforms in the past year alone.

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