What are the finding about India in the Ease of Doing Business Report 2019?

The World Bank has released this year’s Ease of Doing Business report. The report measured the performance of countries across 10 different dimensions in the 12-month period ending May 1, 2019.

Indicators of Ease of Doing Business

The ten indicators include: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency.

Even though11th area viz. employing workers was measured but was not factored into the score.

Each country was scored and was also ranked (in comparison ). The 0-100 score measures any given country’s performance with respect to the best practice across the entire set of countries. A score of zero signifies worst regulatory performance and 100, the best.

How has India performed?

• India has jumped 14 places to the 63rd position riding high on the government’s flagship ”Make in India” scheme and other reforms attracting foreign investment.
• India has also figured among the top 10 performers on the list for the third time in a row.
• India placed 63rd out of 190 countries with an improvement of 14 places from its 77th position last year has improved the score from 67.3 last year to 71.0 this year.
• The Report has lauded India’s reform efforts as particularly commendable given the country’s size.
• India’s ranking improved basically on the account of better performance in four indicators: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, trading across borders and resolving insolvency.
• The report notes that there was an improvement in the efficiency of acquiring building permits.
• Importing and exporting has become easier with a single electronic platform for trade stakeholders, improved electronic submission methods for documents and upgrades to port infrastructure.
• The performance in the resolving insolvency’ indicator was, however, was mixed. The Report notes that reorganization proceedings had been promoted in practice, a positive for the indicator, but resolving insolvency had also been made harder because dissenting creditors would receive less under reorganisation than under liquidation.
• The Report has appreciated Make in India programme and the government’s attention to the Ease of Doing Business indicator itself as a means to demonstrate “tangible progress through a goal of making it to the top 50 list by 2020 (India ranked 130 in 2016).

The ease of doing business rankings this year has been topped by New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong this year.