Malaysia's economic freedom ranking improved from 74th spot to 58th out of 157 countries, according to a Canadian report.

According to the 2015 Economic Freedom Index by Canada's Fraser Institute, based on the most recent economic data available from 2013, Malaysia had improved its scores in five key components.

In a scale of 1 to 10, Malaysia’s size of government rose to 6.51 from 5.96 in the previous year’s report; legal system and property rights increased to 6.93 from 6.79; access to sound money changed to 6.60 from 6.50; freedom to trade internationally rose to 7.74 from 7.60; and regulation of credit, labour and business changed to 8.30 from 8.16.

Ideas chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan said this was a big success for the country.

"This is a snapshot from 2013 and therefore a recognition of the efforts by the government to make the private sector the engine of growth.

"Initiatives in the Economic Transformation Programme, such as divestment of government-inked companies (GLCs) and liberalisation of service sectors may contribute to improving our score in this index," Wan Saiful ( photo ) said in a statement today.

However, he pointed out that there were improvements to be made.

"Among them, the legal enforcement of contracts has plunged... The decline shows that the time, cost and the number of procedures of the settlement (of commercial disputes) is getting less efficient and costly,” Wan Saiful said.

He added that in order to keep going up in the index, the government should keep out of business and push forward with the country's economic liberalisation agenda.

According to the index, Hong Kong had the highest level of economic freedom worldwide, followed by Singapore and New Zealand in second and third places respectively.