These are the 18 best countries in the world for starting and running a business

The World Bank's Doing Business 2016 report is just out - it's the most authoritative source in the world for which countries are most friendly to entrepreneurs, and where's it's least onerous to keep an enterprise running.

We've laid out which countries are in the very upper end of the ranks. We also looked at where they were last year, and where they were five years ago, in the 2011 index.

The World Bank calculates its own score for each country, based on the "distance to frontier" (DTF). That tracks how far each country is from the best ever score for a number of different measures.

Those measures include things like how long it takes to get necessary permits, how long it takes to establish a business, and how burdensome the regulatory and tax environments are.

It's one of the most well-respected indexes on economic performance in the world, and there's fierce competition for a place in the upper ranks.

Here's how those best countries look this year.