The World Bank Group has hit pause on the publication of the Doing Business report after irregularities pertaining to the changes to the data being used in the report surfaced. A statement issued by the World Bank Group read, “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.”
It added that the board of executive directors of the World Bank and authorities of the countries that were affected by the data irregularities have been briefed on the situation. “The publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment,” the statement said.
A Wall Street Journal report, citing a source with knowledge of the development, said that data of four countries — China, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — appeared to have been “inappropriately altered.”
Notably, after the October 2019 report was published, the Ministry of Commerce had said that India 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,” the ministry’s statement said.
“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 statement added.
India was among the countries which were recognised by the now-rescinded report as having shown the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020. Other countries included Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China and Nigeria. During the year 2018-2019, the said countries carried out one-fifth of all the reforms reported worldwide.
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