World Bank Group president, Jim Yong Kim has praised PM Modi’s efforts for economic reforms in the country in an article penned down in Economic Times. He praised various steps taken by the government to ease out the life of entrepreneurs which resulted in an improved ranking of the country in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.
“Few world leaders have taken business regulation reforms as seriously as Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I first met Prime Minister Modi in October 2014, just days before that year’s Ease of Doing Business report was published. India ranked 142nd among 189 countries that year. Prime Minister Modi was dismayed at India’s position. He shared his vision for achieving a top 50 ranking and asked the World Bank Group to provide knowledge and advisory support to help make that vision a reality,” wrote Kim in the article. Kim also exuded confidence that Modi’s efforts would help the country achieve its economic dreams. “Prime Minister Modi’s vision, and the effort to achieve it, will help increase prosperity and give India – and its people – the opportunity to achieve their highest aspirations,” wrote Kim.
The reforms of the last four years resulted in a jump of 65 positions to 77th from 142nd. The country has moved up by thirty places last year and 23 places this year. According to the report, India is among the top ten economies improving most in three or more measures this year. The country registered the most significant improvement in ‘dealing with construction permits’ rank this year. Last year India had 181st position, one of the lowest and now the ranking is 52. The ranking improved due to many reforms taken in the sector, the number of procedures for construction permit came down to 17.9 from 30.1 and number of days for a permit was reduced to 94.8 from 143.9. The cost of the permit as percentage of warehouse value came down to 5.4 percent in comparison to 23.2 percent last year.
Kim lauded PM Modi for substantial reforms and showed confidence that once GST stabilizes, private sector investments will pick up. “Prime Minister Modi took a very different approach to the Ease of Doing Business report and took substantial reforms. We are very encouraged by this. Companies are waiting for it to stabilize before taking more action on investments and expansion,” said Kim in an interview with Business Line, published on October 12, almost three weeks before Ease of Doing Business report was published by the global financial institution. In recent years, the apex development finance institution has shown confidence in the Indian growth story and provided loans to India. As of November 2018, India is the largest recipient of loans from World Bank with amount of around 859 million dollars which more than double of 370 million dollars of loan received by China. The last chief economist of World Bank, Kaushik Basu is also from India. The institution is dominated by United States which has 15.85 percent voting power and the soaring Indo-US relationship in last few years has helped India get more financial help from the World Bank.
Countries around the globe are enthusiastic to learn from India’s experience in improving rankings. “India’s success at the state level has also attracted interest from officials in other federal or multi-tiered countries such as Nigeria, Russia, Indonesia, and China – who are now drawing on India’s experience,” wrote Kim. India is now the highest ranked nation among South Asian countries in Ease of doing Business index. The sheer size of country with diversities matching those of a continent is matched by few countries and it is not easy for a country with such complexities to achieve such a good ranking. India has improved most among the BRICS countries in the last four years. The two other countries which improved their ranking are Russia (31 ranks) and Brazil (11 ranks) but their improvement is not even half as that of India. On the other hand our neighbor China has witnessed a dip of 27 ranks in the last four years, it slipped from 19th rank to 46th rank. The ranking of South Africa also moved southward due to political turmoil and corruption in the country which hindered economic reforms, its ranking has gone down by 39 ranks, from 43 to 82. The ranking improvement will enhance the image of India among global business leaders and more companies would like to move their operations to India. This will give a major fillip to the Indian economy and the country just might achieve a double digit growth in the upcoming years.