Bulgaria climbs nine positions in the Canada's Fraser Institute annual report Economic Freedom of the World.

The country is at the 40th position among 152 countries, tied with the Bahamas and ranking before other EU members such as the Czech Republic, Portugal, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Belgium, France, Croatia, Italy and Greece.

This year Bulgaria gets 7.29 points out of the maximum 10, which is a slight increase, compared to last year's 7.28. 

According to analysts' comments, however, this was mostly due to the fact that other countries have dropped down in the rankings.

The report, based on 2012 statistics, measures the economic freedom (levels of personal choice, ability to enter markets, security of privately owned property, rule of law, etc.) by analyzing the policies and institutions of 151 countries and Hong Kong. It is the world’s premier measurement of economic freedom, using 42 distinct variables to create an index, ranking countries based on economic freedom, which is measured in five areas: size of government, legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labour and business.

The top 10 most economically free jurisdictions are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mauritius, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, Jordan and (tied for 10th) Chile and Finland. The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 12th in the world, tied with the United Kingdom.

Other notable rankings include Japan (23rd), Germany (28th), Russia (98th), India (110th) and China (115th).

The 10 lowest-ranked countries are Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad, Iran, Algeria, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Republic of Congo and Venezuela, which retains the title of the world’s least economically free country. Some despotic countries such as North Korea and Cuba could not be ranked because of lack of data.