Assocham applauds India on reaching 77th position in Ease of Doing Business ranking from 100

New Delhi:Industry body Assocham on Thursday hailed the government for bringing in huge and unprecedented improvement in India's global ranking in Ease of Doing Business within a span of just two years. 

India jumped 23 places to move to 77th position in this year's global Ease of Doing Business rankings, a World Bank report said on Wednesday. Last year, India was ranked at 100. India is the only country to rank among the top 10 improvers for the second consecutive year. 

The industry body said during the last one year, the Government has taken several policy initiatives comprising taxation, construction permit, ease in starting a business, insolvency and trading across borders which have resulted in significant improvement in India's ranking.

India has made highest progress registered in construction permits followed by Trading Across Borders and Starting a Business, Getting Electricity and Getting Credit. However, on the other hand, performance in some other areas created headwinds, limiting the extent of rank improvement. These included areas such as Enforcing Contracts, Registering Property, Resolving Insolvency and Paying taxes.  This will enhance competitiveness of Indian economy and generate higher investments, both domestic and foreign.

India saw a massive jump in the parameter "dealing with construction permits" to 52nd position from 181st a year ago by reducing time for processing permit applications, streamlining procedures, and improving transparency among other measures.

India saw a similar improvement in the "trading across borders" section to 80th position from 146th a year ago. This improvement was made possible by reducing the time and cost to export and import through various initiatives, including the implementation of electronic sealing of containers, upgrading of port infrastructure and allowing electronic submission of supporting documents with digital signatures under its National Trade Facilitation Action Plan 2017-2020.

Starting a business, the government introduced a new mechanism for setting up new businesses. Titled the "Simplified Proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically (SPICe)", it attempted simplifying the process of setting up businesses and reduced the number of procedures one needed to comply with.

The Assocham felt that the wide array of economic policy reforms undertaken during the last four and half year have began to show concrete results in terms of big jump in India's ranking on Ease of doing business. Consolidation of reform process is expected to give rich dividends in terms of higher investment and further cutting down transaction cost of doing business. The strengthening of reform process is expected to further improve India's ranking in coming years.(UNI)