Singapore: Indian bureaucracy is the worst
in Asia with a 9.21 rating out of 10, according to a report by
a prestigious consulting firm based in Hong Kong.
India fared worst than Vietnam (rated at 8.54), Indonesia
(8.37), Philippines (7.57) and China (7.11), said the report
by Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd released on Wednesday.
Singapore remained the best with a rating of 2.25,
followed by Hong Kong (3.53), Thailand (5.25) Taiwan (5.57),
Japan (5.77), South Korea (5.87) and Malaysia (5.89).
The report said India`s inefficient bureaucracy was
largely responsible for most of the biggest complaints that
business executive have about the country.
The complaints included inadequate infrastructure and
corruption, where officials were willing to accept under-the-
table payments and companies were tempted to pay to overcome
bureaucratic inertia and gain government favours, the report
claimed.
The report also highlighted onerous and fickle tax,
environmental and other regulations that could make business
in India "so frustrating and expensive".
It said dealing with court system in India was an
unattractive option for companies, and would be best to avoid
it.
The bureaucrats were rarely held accountable for wrong
decisions and it would be extremely difficult to challenge
them when there were disagreements, it said.
"This gives them (bureaucrats) terrific powers and
could be one of the main reasons why average Indians as well
as existing and would-be foreign investors perceive India’s
bureaucrats as negatively as they do," said the report.
But there were plus points when India was compared to
countries within the economic development group.
In the 2011-12 Global Competitiveness Report of the
World Economic Forum, India ranked behind China but ahead of
Russia and Brazil for the burden of government regulations as
well as for the burden of customs procedures.
India was also second to Brazil but well ahead of China
and Russia for the quality of regulation and supervision of
the securities exchange, said the report.
India was also better than Brazil, Russia and China as
the fastest place to set up a new business and to deal with
construction permits, and was the second fastest place to deal
with export and import procedures, the report said.
PTI
