World Bank suspends 'ease of doing business' report

The World Bank Group has 'paused' the publication of the Doing Business report after irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data used in the report.

A World Bank statement said, "A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology."

"The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank has been briefed on the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities. The publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment," the statement said.

After the release of the October 2019 report, a statement from the Ministry of Commerce said, "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. India's leap of 14 ranks in the Ease of Doing Business ranking is significant, considering that there has been continuous improvement since 2015 and for the third consecutive year India is amongst the top 10 improvers."

"As a result of continued efforts by the Government, India has improved its rank by 79 positions in the last five years from 2014-2019," the official statement had said.

According to the now-withdrawn World Bank report, the economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020 were Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, India and Nigeria. In 2018-2019, these countries implemented one-fifth of all the reforms recorded worldwide.