Ease of Doing Business Ranking 2019: Repeating last year’s huge success, India, once again, made a huge jump of 23 places on World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business to secure 77th rank — indicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment towards business-related reforms.
Not only has India made remarkable progress but has also become the highest ranked economy in South Asia, leaving Bhutan behind. India’s huge stride towards becoming a business-friendly nation has come in the last two years, with a total jump of 53 places.
New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark secured the first three ranks in the 190-country list, while Afghanistan made a huge progress among South-Asian countries besides India.
By improving on six of the ten parameters, India has also made its place among top ten improvers in the world, for the second consecutive year. Last year, India had jumped 30 ranks to break into top 100 of the elite list for the first time.
From the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), labour laws reforms to electronic trade documentation, World Bank said, several big and small reforms made India advance to the 77th place in the global ranking.
“India made paying taxes easier by replacing many indirect taxes with a single indirect tax, the GST, for the entire country,” the World Bank said, giving thumbs up on Paying Taxes indicator.
The recent corporate tax rate cut for small businesses in the Budget 2018 also got praise from the World Bank.
On the new-adopted IBC law, which is likely to help lenders recover over Rs 1 lakh crore of bad loans soon, the World Bank noted that the establishment of debt recovery tribunals reduced nonperforming loans by 28% and helped in lowering interest rates on larger loans.
Moreover, India’s efforts towards reducing time and cost of trade by the electronic sealing of containers, upgrading of port infrastructure, and submission of electronic documents with digital signature also won big for the country.
Other reforms such as streamlining the process of obtaining a building permit and making electricity available faster and cheaper were also received well.
The World Bank’s Doing Business report assesses 190 economies on ten parameters — 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.
In India, reforms undertaken by Delhi and Mumbai were considered by the World Bank.
