India up ease of doing business ladder?

India may have improved its ranking further in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business list. Two top Cabinet ministers have hinted as much even though the report is expected only in a fortnight from now.

If that happens, it will be the third consecutive year that India has improved its ranking in the global ranking by the World Bank.

“You will soon hear some good news when the World Bank report comes later this month,” Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Tuesday, addressing an industry event here.

Last year, India for the first time moved into the top 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business global rankings on the back of sustained business reforms under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A year before, in 2017, the report had ranked India at 130 among 190 countries in which the World Bank report captures reform implementation.

Prior to Prabhu, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, at the same event, said he was hopeful that India would move further up in the ranking by the global lender.

The Ease of Doing Business report is expected by October 31. Last year, the report had lauded India’s performance in the areas of protecting minority investors, getting credit and electricity. It had said that the country’s corporate law and securities regulations had been recognised as highly advanced, placing India in the fourth place in the global ranking on protecting minority investors.

Speaking a day after the official data suggested India’s exports had contracted 2.1% in September for the first time in the fiscal year 2018-19, the commerce minister outlined how his ministry had planned to help India become a $5 trillion economy.

Prabhu said his ministry had identified products and countries to promote exports and prepared an action plan for making India a $5 trillion economy of which $1 trillion would come from manufacturing, $3 trillion from services and the balance from agriculture.