PremiumAfter China and three other countries submitted data that was inappropriately altered with regard to the Ease of Doing Business Report, the World Bank has now corrected the data. In the updated report, China has slipped seven positions below to 85.
Following reviews of data irregularities, the World Bank recently releases its updated Doing Business in which China's position has been downgraded. The World Bank has said that China's ranking would have been lower by seven notches in the index for 2018. Besides China, the ranking of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan has also gone down in the corrected list.
In August, the World Bank had decided to pause the publication of its Doing Business report following a number of irregularities regarding changes to data in previous reports.
The review details the irregularities and required corrections affecting the data for four countries -- China, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan, World Bank said in a statement dated December 16.
Here are a few things that you need to know
In Doing Business report 2018, the published score of China including irregularities affecting the Starting a Business, Getting Credit, and Paying Taxes indicators was 65.3 with a global ranking of 78, identical to its rank in the Doing Business 2017 report
After correcting the irregularities described above, the Doing Business 2018 score is 64.5. Taking as given the published data for all other countries, China's global ranking in Doing Business 2018 would have been 85, a decline of seven places relative to the previous year," the statement read.
In the case of Azerbaijan, In Doing Business 2020, the published score including irregularities affecting the Getting Electricity, Enforcing Contracts, and Trading Across Borders indicators was 76.7 with a global ranking of 34. After correcting the irregularities, the Doing Business 2020 score is 78.5.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, in the 2020 report, the published score including irregularities affecting the Getting Credit and Paying Taxes indicators was 71.6 with a global ranking of 62. After correcting these irregularities, the Doing Business 2020 score is 70.9. However, if irregularities had not occurred, Saudi Arabia's position would stand at 63.
The UAE on the other hand, including irregularities affecting the Paying Taxes indicator, was 80.9 with a global ranking of 16 and after correcting this irregularity, the Doing Business 2020 score is 80.8. The global ranking would be unchanged at 16 even after correcting the irregularity.
"Taking as, given the published data for all other countries, the United Arab Emirates' global ranking would be unchanged at 16," World Bank statement said.
India had jumped 14 positions to be ranked 63rd among 190 countries in the World Bank's ease of doing business 2020 survey.
(With input from agencies)
