India Ranks 132 in "Ease of Entrepreneurs Starting a Business": World Bank


India Ranks 132 in

Bangalore: India remains one of the most difficult places to do business in the world. It has once again been ranked 132nd of the 185 countries in Doing Business 2013, a study conducted by the International Finance Corporation. This being in contrast to Bangalore being ranked in Top 10 cities in the world for entrepreneurship. India is below neighbouring nations with Bangladesh at 129, Pakistan at 107 and Sri Lanka at 81. India continues to be a tough place for doing business even as the country has improved regulator processes for starting enterprises and trading across borders. Singapore retained its top spot in this list for the seventh year in a row.

Also, India could not make into the 10 economies that have improved the most. Poland (rank 55) tops this list, with Sri Lanka (81) coming second and Ukraine (137) third. India also remains the second-most difficult country to enforce contracts (184) just behind Timor-Leste (185).

As a consolation, India ranked among the top 50 improvers since 2005. The report said that India has implemented regulatory reforms particularly in the early years of the Doing Business survey. It also said that after establishing its first credit bureau in 2004, India focused mostly on simplifying and reducing the cost of regulatory processes in such areas as starting a business, paying taxes and trading across borders.

Also, India is the first economy in the region to make dealing with construction permits easier for local firms since 2005.

In nutshell, it is a bad news for India that aspires to return to 8%-plus growth rate in the medium term in order to create jobs and lift a huge mass of its citizens out of poverty. These numbers will have to change considerably if India has to return to high growth and if it is to generate jobs. Just opening a few sectors to foreign investment in the name of reforms will not be sufficient. India should take on basic tasks to become a good place for doing business.