The World Bank just released its annual “Doing Business” report for 2007, and there is good news for Central Asia (sort of). Eastern European Central Asian countries ranked among the best reformers for improving the business climate. What does that mean, exactly?

For starters, a closer look at the specific Central Asian countries disaggregated from the Eastern European makes it rather clear which side of the Caucasus was weighting the designation of “most reformed.” For instance, Kazakhstan’s business climate seems to have net deteriorated since last year, as did Kyrgyzstan’s. Tajikistan was more or less a wash, and — surprisingly — Uzbekistan improved the business climate significantly, according to the WB. They didn’t even bother to survey Turkmenistan.

There is a country by country description of reforms made, but it is rather technical. An easier way to break it down is by their individual indicators. For instance, in Tajikistan it became easier to open a business, but harder to get a license or register property. On average, it now takes 49 days to open a business over 13 different procedures there, according to the WB. In another example, registering property became dramatically easier in Uzbekistan, though closing a business was marginally more complicated.

Despite Uzbekistan’s putative improvement, Central Asia still fares pretty poorly overall. Out of a total of 178 countries, Tajikistan comes in at 153, with a more difficult business environment than 86% of the countries surveyed, roughly on par with Afghanistan, and beaten out even by Zimbabwe and Rwanda. Kazakhstan ranked the highest of the Central Asian countries at 71, with a business climate comparable to Kenya or the UAE.

Google has a fun map if you want a snapshot of “Doing Business” over the entire world.

(Hat tip to the Private Sector Development blog for the story.)