Ease of Doing Business: India jumps up 30 places, now ranked 100

New Delhi: India has risen to 100 from 130 in the Ease of Doing Business rankings, released by World Bank. The rising economy was also rated among the top 10 countries in terms of improvement in the business climate. The rise was attributed to a number of systemic reforms taken over the past three years.

Despite the 30-place jump in the ranking, India still ranks in the bottom half of the table as far as ease of doing business is concerned. India was the only large economy, the South Asian nation and the only BRICS country in the 10 most improved places to do business.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hailed the World Bank report and said ongoing measures will further improve India's ranking. "The country has made a 30-point jump. A number of measures implemented were not considered this time. In the next report, these and the ongoing work-in-progress will ensure India's ranking improves further.

The 190-country ranking, which is run by the World Bank Group, saw India make significant improvements in the availability of credit (ranked 29 vs 44 last year), protection of minority investors (ranked 4 vs 13 last year), tax compliance (119 vs 172), enforcement of contracts (164 vs 172) and insolvency (103 vs 136). Other major factors that drove India’s upward movement on the list included the user feedback system put in place by the Centre and reforms in the corporate income tax and EPFO.

Registering property (154 vs 138), getting electricity (29 vs 26) and trading across borders (146 vs 143) were some of the areas where India fared worse compared to the last ranking.

The ranking saw India as being among the 10 most improved places to do business. The other nine countries on this list (in particular order) were Brunei, Jerusalem, Thailand, Malawi, Thailand, Kosovo, Zambia, Djibouti and El Salvador.

The Doing Business report also noted that growth in small and media enterprises (SMEs) is the only way for India to create enough jobs.

In last year’s ranking, India had risen 25 places in the availability of electricity, from 51 to 26th position. The other significant improvement last year was in contract enforcement, where it rose to 172 from 178.