India ranks 130 in ease of doing business report; jumps 12 spots

Washington: India now ranks 130 out of 189 countries in the ease of doing business, moving up 12 places from last year, according to a World Bank report. "A forward movement of 12 spots in the ease of doing business by an economy of the size of India is a 'remarkable achievement," World Bank's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Kaushik Basu said.

"For any big economy, a rank improvement of 12 is a remarkable achievement. Going from 142 in the world to 130, as India has done, is very good sign. It gives a good signal about the way things are moving in India," Basu told PTI in an interview as World Bank released its annual report 'Doing Business 2016' which is topped by Singapore, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, South Korea, Hong Kong, Britain and the US.

China is ranked 84 and Pakistan is at 138th place. Pakistan in fact has slipped 10 spots from 128 last year while China has moved six spots in a year from 90 since the last report. The World Bank said India, which has a global ranking of 130, implemented two reforms during the past year. For example, in starting a business, India eliminated the requirements for a paid-in minimum capital and a certificate to commence business operations, significantly streamlining the process for starting a business.

"What is significant about India is that they are in the middle of what appears to be a very, very ambitious process of reforms affecting a broad range of areas captured by the Doing Business indicators," Lopez Claros, Director of the Global Indicators Group World Bank, said during a conference call.

"My expectation, therefore, is that if this process continues, if it is sustained, and the authorities show the degree of determination which has been in evidence in the last year, then we could see substantial improvements in coming year," he said. Observing that the potential to see kind of a rapid economic growth in India is very high, Claros said it has very favourable demographics, and to the extent that some of the bottlenecks that the Doing Business data identified in India are removed, the potential benefits could be quite large.

"And India being India, that is a large economy. This could have also international repercussions in terms of the impact on the global economy," he said.

The Doing Business report records 22 economies worldwide with resolution times above 1,000 days and four of them are in the South Asia region, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. Furthermore, it takes entrepreneurs in the region an average 98 days to register property, which is more than twice the global average.

Last year, Pakistan was ranked 128 and Bhutan was 125. India was ranked 142, Afghanistan 183, Bangladesh 173. Last year, India was ranked 158 in starting a business, dealing with construction permits (158), Getting electricity (137), Registering property (121), Getting Credit (36) Protecting minority investors (seven), paying taxes (156), trading across borders (126), enforcing contracts (186), and Resolving insolvency (137).