Ease of Doing Business: India enters top 100 for the first time ever

India moved for the first time into the top 100 of World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business global rankings due to sustained business reforms over the past several years. 

Latest ranking was announced by the World Bank Group’s latest Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report. 

Last year the report had ranked India at 130.  

Annette Dixon, Vice President, South Asia region, said,“Having embarked on a strong reform agenda to improve the business environment, the significant jump this year is a result of the Indian government’s consistent efforts over the past few years. It indicates India’s endeavor to further strengthen its position as a preferred place to do business globally."

Further, the report also labelled India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, having implemented reforms in 8 out of 10 Doing Business indicators.

According to the World Bank report, India is the only large country this year to have achieved such a significant shift.

On the “distance to frontier metric,” one of the key indicators in the survey, India’s score went from 56.05 in Doing Business 2017 to 60.76 in Doing Business 2018 - which means last year India improved its business regulations in absolute terms – indicating that the country is continuing its steady shift towards best practice in business regulation.

Marking its 15th anniversary, the report notes that India has adopted 37 reforms since 2003. It added that, nearly half of these reforms have been implemented in the last four years.

The World Bank's report indicates reforms implemented in 190 countries in the period June 2, 2016 to June 1, 2017. 

India was seen performing well in areas of Protecting Minority Investors, Getting Credit, and Getting Electricity. Also, India's corporate law and securities regulations have been recognized as highly advanced - taking  the country in 4th place in the global ranking on Protecting Minority Investors.

Interestingly, where the report acknowledged various progress of India, it also mentioned few areas - which needed proper tweaking. The report stated that, India continues to lag in segments like Starting a Business, Enforcing Contracts, and Dealing with Construction Permits.

Under Enforcing Contracts, time taken in this indicator is longer currently, at 1,445 days, than it was 15 years ago (1,420 days), placing the country in 164th place in the global ranking.

While, in Starting a Business indicator, India has reduced the time needed to register a new business to 30 days now, from 127 days 15 years ago. 

Junaid Ahmad, Country Director India, said, “Tackling these challenging reforms will be key to India sustaining the momentum towards a higher ranking. To secure changes in the remaining areas will require not just new laws and online systems but deepening the ongoing investment in the capacity of states and their institutions to implement change and transform the framework of incentives and regulation facing the private sector. India’s focus on ‘doing business’ at the state level may well be the platform that sustains the country’s reform trajectory for the future."

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley commenting on the report said, "There's scope for significant improvement in India's ranking. The country strives to be in top 50 in doing business ranking. Biggest jump India got in the ease of doing business was on taxation reforms."

Jaitley added, "India need to improve on building-construction permits. States should expedite muncipal construction permits."