World Bank’s Doing Business Report, 2018

Overview: The World Bank has released its latest Doing Business Report (DBR, 2019). The report ranks 190 economies based on how easy it is to do business there, taking into account trading regulations, property rights, contract enforcement, investment laws, the availability of credit and a number of other factors. The first report was published in 2003.

Performance of various countries:

• The top five overall are: New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong and Korea. The U.S. ranks 8th, down from 6th last year.
• As per the latest report, Afghanistan had moved up the most, by 16 spots, from 183th in last year’s ranking to 167th this year.
• China and India — two economies with the largest populations — are among top 10 improvers this year.
• Afghanistan, Djibouti, Azerbaijan, Togo, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Turkey and Rwanda rounded out the top 10 most improved list. In addition, Djibouti and India are the only economies to make the 10 top most improved list for the second consecutive year.

Performance of India:

• India climbed 23 spots from a year ago to rank 77 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s latest report on the ease of doing business.
• It was also among the top 10 most improved economies along with countries such as China, Djibouti and Azerbaijan.
• The ease of doing business in India improved notably after a series of reforms made it easier for companies to get construction permits, pay taxes and trade across borders.

Areas of improvement:

• Entrepreneurs were able to start a business more easily after India integrated multiple application forms into a general incorporation form. Reforms also “streamlined the process of obtaining a building permit and made it faster and less expensive to obtain a construction permit.”
• Last year, the country amended its insolvency and bankruptcy code which prevented willful defaulters from buying up any of their own troubled assets at discounted rates. That strengthened access to credit as “secured creditors are now given absolute priority over other claims within insolvency proceedings”.
• Other areas of improvement included simplifying India’s complex tax structure that made it easier to pay taxes. Initiatives implemented under the National Trade Facilitation Action Plan 2017-2020 improved the efficiency of cross-border trading and reduced the time taken to meet compliance requirements.

Sources: the hindu.