Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed India’s 30 place jump in the 2018 East of Doing Business (EODB) rankings of the World Bank. India’s overall rank improved from 130 in the 2017 report to 100 in the latest report. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also hailed India’s 30 place jump in the rankings. During a press conference, he said, “India’s 30 point jump is the highest any country had made in the doing Business rankings itself”. It is not clear whether he meant that this jump is the best in 2018 rankings or the best ever. So, is India’s jump the best ever?

What are the EODB Rankings?

According to the World Bank EODB website, Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1–190 in the latest report.  A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. The 2018 rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2017.

For the 2018 rankings, 190 countries are benchmarked on 11 sets of indicators. The first-ever rankings in 2004 included only 5 indicators and ranked 133 countries.

The eleven (11) indicators that are part of this year’s rankings are the following

Limitations of the EODB Survey

According to the methodology as given on the EODB website, there are certain limitations of the survey. It has to be noted that for most countries, the collected data refer to businesses in the largest business city (which in some countries differs from the capital) and may not be representative of regulation in other parts of the economy. The only exception to this are the 11 economies/countries like India that have more than 100 million population as of 2013. In these 11 cases, the data is also collected for the second largest business city. In India’s case, the data is collected from both Mumbai & Delhi.

The methodology also indicates that the data often focus on a specific business form—generally a limited liability company (or its legal equivalent) of a specified size—and may not be representative of the regulation on other businesses (for example, sole proprietorships).

India’s 30 place jump is the best in 2018

In the latest rankings, India jumped 30 places to reach the 100th rank out of 190 countries. India’s jump of 30 places is the best of all the countries surveyed. The next is Palestine which jumped 26 places followed by Mauritius that jumped 24 places. Twenty (20) economies improved their rankings by 10 or more in the latest rankings. Of the economies that improved their rankings by 10 or more, Mauritius (25th) and Thailand (26th)  have the best overall rank.

Is India’s jump the best ever?

India’s 30 place jump is not the best ever though it is the best in the last two years. The best ever jump was by Rwanda in 2010 followed by Azerbaijan in 2009 & Georgia in 2007.

This article has been re-published with the permission of Factly. Visit the website here.