The World Bank released its latest Ease of Doing Business Report (DBR, 2020) on Friday, 24 October 2019. India has recorded a jump of 14 positions against its rank of 77 in 2019 to be placed now at 63rd rank among 190 countries assessed by the World Bank.
The leap of 14 ranks by India in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business rankings for 2019 marks the third consecutive year when the country has stood among the most improved places to do business. It may also be noted that in the last five years, India has improved its rank by 79 places in the rankings.
The World Bank Ease of Doing Business assessment provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies on ten parameters affecting a business through its life cycle. The DBR ranks countries on the basis of Distance to Frontier (DTF), a score that shows the gap of an economy to the global best practice. This year, India’s DTF score improved to 71.0 from 67.23 in the previous year.
India has improved its rank in 7 out of 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices (Distance to Frontier score). Significant improvements have been registered in ‘Resolving Insolvency’, ‘Dealing with Construction Permits’, ‘Registering Property’, ‘Trading across Boards’ and ‘Paying Taxes’ indicators.
The changes in seven indicators where India improved its rank in World Bank Ease of Doing Business report are as follows:
| S. No. | Indicator | 2018 | 2019 | Change |
| 1 | Resolving Insolvency | 108 | 52 | +56 |
| 2 | Construction Permits | 52 | 27 | +25 |
| 3 | Trading Across Borders | 80 | 68 | +12 |
| 4 | Registering Property | 166 | 154 | +12 |
| 5 | Paying Taxes | 121 | 115 | +6 |
| 6 | Getting Electricity | 24 | 22 | +2 |
| 7 | Starting a Business | 137 | 136 | +1 |
Overall rank | 77 | 63 | +14 | |
The important features of India’s performance in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business rankings 2019 include:
- The World Bank has recognized India as one of the most improved places for doing business for the third time in a row.
- Recovery rate under resolving insolvency has improved significantly from 26.5% to 71.6%.
- The time taken for resolving insolvency has also come down significantly from 4.3 years to 1.6 years.
- India continues to maintain its first position among South Asian countries.
As per the DBR report for 2019, the world’s most business-friendly countries are
- New Zealand
- Singapore
- Hong Kong SAR, China
- Denmark
- Korea, Rep.
- United States
- Georgia
- United Kingdom
- Norway
- Sweden
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