India Jumps 14 Positions On World Bank’s Ease Of Doing Business Ranking

World Bank's ease of doing business ranking released on Thursday showed that India has moved 14 places from the last year to the 63rd position among 190 nations. Despite an improvement in the ranking due to multiple reforms made, the country did not touch the Modi-led government's target of 50th position.

The report has assessed improvement in doing business in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi. World Bank Group's Doing Business 2020 study said, "Sustained business reforms over the past several years has helped India jump 14 places to move to 63rd position in this year's global ease of Doing Business rankings. India put in place four new business reforms during the past year and earned a place in among the world's top ten improvers for the third consecutive year."

The improved status is likely to help lift the spirits of the NDA government that has been dealing with a slumping economy with gross domestic product (GDP) growth falling to 5 percent in the April-June quarter.

In Doing Business 2020, India along with other top improvers had implemented a total of 59 regulatory reforms in the financial year 2018-19, making for one-fifth of all the reforms recorded worldwide.

India still has some areas of improvement ahead, like in areas of enforcing contracts (163rd) and registering property (154th). Registering a property takes 58 days and costs on average 7.8 percent of a property's value in the country, which is longer and at greater cost than among OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) high-income economies.

In India, it takes 1,445 days for a company to resolve a commercial dispute through a local first-instance court, almost three times higher than the average time in OECD high-income economies.

India was among the top 10 economies that improved the most on the ease of doing business after implementing regulatory reforms along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, and Nigeria.

The modern insolvency regime established in 2016 to reform corporate law paved the way for a gradual increase in the number of reorganizations, despite challenges in its implementation.

The overall recovery rate for creditors has jumped from 26.5 to 71.6 cents on the dollar, making India "by far the best performer in South Asia on this component and does better than the average for OECD high-income economies," as per the Doing Business 2020 report.