Huge stride in Ease of Doing Business; World Bank praises India for being South Asia's top ranked economy

Mumbai, October 24: Giving a major boost to the industrial and manufacturing sector, India's Ease of Doing Business ranking as released by the World Bank on Thursday has jumped over 14 positions landing to the 63rd rank globally.

 

The World Bank report has also recognised India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, for the third successive time. "India is the only large country this year to have achieved such a significant shift", the report claimed.

 

 

With gross domestic product growth slumping to 5 per cent in April-June, the Indian economy, hailed as global growth engine and darling of foreign investors until recently, was now seen by many as falling off a cliff.

 

Meanwhile, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant while on the sidelines of India Korea Business Partnership Forum 2019, has hailed India's significant jump in ease of doing business ranking. "It is a huge achievement. Our objective is to reach the top 50 and reach the top 25 in the next three years of time. This is the target the prime minister has set for us", he said adding that there was a scope of improvement on some parameters but it was a huge achievement.

 

However, improving over 79 notches in the last six years, India's rank is slated to rise more next year after factoring in corporate income tax changes as announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

 

On September 20 this year, the government slashed the corporate income tax rate from 30 percent to 22 percent for all companies. Inclusive of cess and surcharges the effective corporate tax rate in India now comes down to corporate tax to 25.17 per cent. Newer companies, which are set up after October 1 will be subjected to an even lower effective tax rate of 17 per cent.

The new rates brings India closer, in some cases lower, to the rates prevalent in many of the emerging and industrialised countries. The new corporate income tax rates in India will be lower than USA, Japan, Brazil, Germany and is similar to China and Korea. New companies in India with an effective tax rate of 17 percent is equivalent what corporates pay in Singapore.