By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS
Dubai : India is doing excellent work when it comes to policies for creating the right climate for doing business, according to a senior economist of the World Bank.
“India is doing excellent work and has improved greatly with its policies to create the right climate for doing business,” Dahlia Khalifa, senior strategy advisor of the World Bank-International Finance Corporation’s Doing Business project, told IANS here.
The Doing Business project carries out annual surveys in countries across the world and ranks them taking into account various parameters for creating the right climate to do business.
“In its efforts to have the right business climate, India has engaged with the World Bank to do several sub-national level studies,” said Khalifa, who is here for an advisory workshop on Doing Business 2008.
India jumped 12 places to be ranked 120th among 178 countries in the Doing Business 2008 rankings from the previous year’s rank of 132nd when it came to ease of doing business in the country.
She said that India has also appointed several inter-governmental councils for carrying out reforms.
“India is also very serious about carrying out legal regulatory reforms,” the World Bank economist said.
She pointed out three areas where India’s strengths lay. “India’s main strengths are protecting investors, getting credit and trading across borders,” she said.
India ranked 33rd when it came to protecting investors. In the parameter of getting credit, it shot up 26 notches from the previous year’s list to be ranked at 36th.
As for trading across borders, the country simply zoomed up from 142nd in 2007 to 79th in 2008 – an improvement of 63 notches.
Khalifa, however, said that there were still areas where there was scope for a lot of improvement.
“India’s main weaknesses are in terms of closing a business and bankruptcy. More judicial reforms are needed,” she said.
In the parameters of starting and closing businesses, India fared poorly in the 2008 list.
It fell 18 positions from the previous year’s list to be ranked at 111th in 2008 under the parameter of starting a business.
Other parameters where India fared poorly were dealing with licences (down a notch from 2007 to be ranked at 134th), registering property (down four notches to 112th) and paying taxes (down seven notches to 165th).
It fared worst under the parameter of enforcing contracts, ranked at 177th among 178 countries, with no improvement from the previous year.
As for closing a business, it was ranked at 137th, down two positions from 2007.”Overall, however,” Khalifa said, “India is doing excellent work for creating the right business climate and is going in the right direction.”
Singapore tops the Doing Business 2008 list, followed by New Zealand and the US.