In the World Bank's latest 'Doing Business' report, India's place has remained unchanged from the last year's original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. The government has been making efforts to improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the top 50.
As per the 'distance to frontier' ranking -- a measurement of the gap between an economy's performance and the best practice score of 100 – India is able to improve the score to 55.27 this year from 53.93 last year.
The final list of countries in the Doing Business 2017 is topped by New Zealand, while Singapore is ranked second. It is followed by Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, the UK, the US, Sweden and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
A record 137 economies around the world have adopted the key reforms that will make it easier to start and operate small and medium-sized businesses, the report said. Developing countries has carried out more than 75 percent of the 283 reforms in the past year, with the Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over one-quarter of all the reforms, it added.
"What we have seen is a remarkable effort on the part of the government to implement business reforms. It looks like we are going to have to wait for another year or so. But the direction of change is fundamentally a very significant one," Global Indicators Group Director Augusto Lopez-Claros said.
India has improved its ranking with respect to various areas. In terms of getting electricity, the country's position has jumped to 26th spot from 51st place last year. Regarding trading across the borders, the ranking has moved up one place to 143, and in enforcing contracts the rise is of six spots to 172nd position.
"There are four areas of improvement this year in India getting electricity, trading across border, enforcing contracts and paying taxes," Rita Ramalho, Manager of the Doing Business project said.
"The reason why there is no real movement in the ranking is more to do with the fact that other countries are also moving. In absolute terms India, does improve significantly. There aren't many countries that improved more than India in terms of absolute number," Ramalho said.
By Premji
