China has made steady progress in improving business regulations for local entrepreneurs in East Asia and the Pacific since 2005, a report released by World Bank Group said on Tuesday.

Doing Business 2014, the 11th in a series of annual reports benchmarking the regulations that affect private-sector firms across 189 economies, said China now ranks 13th among the top 50 economies for narrowing the distance to frontier the most since 2005.

The report analyzed regulations that apply to an economy's businesses during their life cycles, including startup and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes and resolving insolvency.