India made a massive jump of 23 places to move to the 77th spot in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business global rankings of 190 countries in 2018, prompting the multilateral agency to recognise the country as one of the top “improvers” this year.
The improvement in ranking, coming ahead of Assembly elections in five major states and 2019 general elections next year, could be a shot in the arm for the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
Since 2014, India has moved up 65 places, which is a record improvement for any country in four years’ time, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after the release of the World Bank ranking report.
India was at the 142nd place in the group of 190 countries in 2014. The country improved its rankings in six of the 10 sub-categories used by the World Bank to judge business climate, but slipped two notches to 121 in ‘paying taxes’.
Jaitley said the Goods and Services Tax implementation, which has almost done away with the teething problems, will help the country improve this ranking too.
In 'Trading across borders', India went up 66 places to come at the 80th spot. The country registered the best performance in 'Dealing with Construction Permits' where it jumped by a massive 129 places to become the 52nd easiest place to construct a business unit.
Jaitley said the report covered policy reforms undertaken till May 1. The World Bank takes into account two metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai to prepare the report.
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