Experts laud govt efforts that led to India galloping 30 points in 'Doing Business' ranking

Moneycontrol News 

The World Bank released its Doing Business 2018 report on Tuesday ranking India at 100th position, against 130 last year, making it one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment.

World Bank Country Director for India, Junaid Ahmed told CNBC-TV18 that India has "hit the century" as he welcomed India's rank in the Ease of Doing Business Report 2018.

Junaid Ahmed pointed out that India's "perseverance", "consistency" and "coordination across several departments and different tiers of the government" is phenomenal as it continued to implement reforms in various sectors.

The leap in the Doing Business ranking would "attract business and attract a lot of foreign direct investments," said Ahmed.

He explained that the Narendra Modi-led government has been implementing reforms in eight out of the total ten indicators and has shown a relative improvement in six.

On the state governments' role, Ahmed said that the coordination between Centre and the state is key for India.

"The government of India has understood this and triggered a sub-national doing business competition," he added.

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) President Pankaj Patel said that the leap did not come as a surprise, given the "spree of reform initiatives" taken by the Indian government.

"An improvement by 30 places in the ranking is significant and will enhance India’s attraction as an investment destination and give a further boost to ‘Make in India’. We are confident that with continued efforts of the government, India shall soon be ranked amongst the top 50 countries in ease of doing business rankings", said Patel.

Praising the GST implementation to have "laid the foundation for a more efficient indirect tax system" and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code to have eased business exits, Patel added that the reforms have covered areas of taxation, finance, legal and administrative procedures.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said: "The huge improvement in ranking and score will immediately boost investor sentiments. The latest report validates the commitment of the government to fast-track economic reforms, address red tape and facilitate businesses."

Expressing pride over the key reforms in the digitisation of processes, enhancing tax payment and access to credit, Banerjee said: "In fact, India is well on its way to emerging as a global leader in protecting minority interests and is currently ranked at number 4 in the world."

"One of the most important reforms has been GST and unfortunately that has not be considered in this year’s report owing to cut-off date. CII is confident that on the back of GST and other reforms that are planned, India would see an equally impressive improvement next year," he added.