The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) lauded the Government on Milestone Shift in Doing Business Rankings

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) warmly felicitated the Government led by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi for achieving a milestone shift of 30 places in India’s rank in just one year in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2018 released today. The report placed India at 100, up from 130 last year and 142 just three years ago.

“Hon’ble Prime Minister undertook a moonshot challenge to improve India’s rank and he has delivered through proactive leadership and constant monitoring with the rank going up from 130 to 100 within a year. This imparts a huge fillip to investors that the reform process is on track and would continue to be addressed intensively,” said Ms Shobana Kamineni, President, CII.

“The Government has strategically addressed choke points of the business ecosystem in a mission mode to improve India’s rank and break into the list of top reforming nations. With the active participation of the states, industry is seeing visible impact at the grassroots in the investment climate,” she added.

CII lauded the Government for initiatives and actions such as single window for building approvals, digitisation, and easier tax compliance, which have been noted in the World Bank report. Digital platforms such as ICEGATE, SWIFT and SPICe have placed clearances and approvals for starting a business, trading across borders and other processes online for transparency and efficiency. The Distance to Frontier scores have improved notably across most parameters, going up by 4.71 to cross 60, indicating rapid progress, said CII.

The CII press release noted that with the huge jump in Doing Business rankings, the country emerges as an even more attractive place for investors. There are indications of the Indian economy turning the corner for faster growth in the second half of the year. FDI in the last three years has crossed $175 billion, more than a third of the total since April 2000, and it continues to increase at 37% in the first quarter of 2017-18, said CII.

CII has been engaged in working with the Government to identify Ease of Doing Business issues. It has provided inputs on GST implementation, trade facilitation, e-courts, and single-window clearances, among many others. In fact, CII undertook a detailed study for eight large states on improving the investment climate. It has also made suggestions to various states for training of Government officials, setting up one-stop shops for regulatory and fiscal incentive approvals and establishing e-payment modes.

CII expects that the Government’s strong action under the Business Reform Action Plan 2017 with partnership of states covering regulations, labour returns, commercial dispute resolution and so on would further push up India’s rank next year.