New Delhi, Oct 29 (KNN)  India slipped further to 134th rank from 132nd in terms of ease of doing business index, according to World Bank report, coming in behind its neighbours Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and China.

While Pakistan ranked 110, Nepal was 105, China 96 and Bangladesh 130, said the World Bank Report titled, ‘Doing Business 2014 - Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises.’

India, the report said, has made an improvement of 0.5 percentage points in what is called "the distance to frontier" measure with a range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the best performance or the frontier.

India's "distance to frontier" in 2013 was 52.7 as against 52.3 in 2012.

Also, according to the new World Bank Group report released today, India implemented the most number of business regulatory reforms in 2012-13 in the South Asian region.

“If economies around the world were to follow best practices in regulatory processes for starting a business, entrepreneurs would spend 45 million fewer days each year satisfying bureaucratic requirements,” the World Bank said.

Commenting on the report, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said, “A better business climate that enables entrepreneurs to build their businesses and reinvest in their communities is key to local and global economic growth. 

“Doing Business shows that economies with better business regulations are more likely to empower local entrepreneurs to create more jobs – another step in the right direction toward ending extreme poverty by 2030,” he added.

The report also finds that six of eight economies in South Asia completed 11 reforms simplifying the process of starting a business, strengthening access to credit, or easing the process for paying taxes.

Since 2005, all economies in the region have implemented business regulatory reforms in the areas measured by Doing Business.

Together, the eight economies recorded 75 reforms. India implemented the most number of reforms in the region with 17 reforms during this period, followed by Sri Lanka with 16.

But Sri Lanka claims the region's highest spot in the global ease of doing business ranking, at 85 out of 189 economies.

Among the BRICS economies - Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China, and South Africa - Russia made the most progress.

Singapore tops the global ranking on the ease of doing business. Joining it on the list of the top 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulations are Hong Kong, China; New Zealand; the US; Denmark; Malaysia; South Korea; Georgia; Norway; and Britain.

The report found that governments around the world significantly stepped up their pace of improving business regulations in 114 economies last year - an 18 per cent jump from the previous year.

”There is a clearly discernible process of convergence around the world,” said Director of  Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group Augusto Lopez-Claros. 

“The economies with the most costly and complex procedures and the weakest institutions are gradually adopting some of the regulatory practices seen in the better performers, and this is leading to a process of catching up across many of the dimensions captured by the Doing Business indicators,” he added.

The report is the 11th in a series of annual reports on the ease of doing business, and it documented 238 business regulatory reforms worldwide last year.  (KNN/SD)