INDIA RELAXES TRADE BARRIERS

LONG known for its bureaucracy, India has made major strides in improving prospects for businesses in the country, the World Bank said in a report yesterday. India rose 23 places to 77th in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for 2019, up from 100th in 2018 and 130th in 2017, when it was ranked lower than Iran and Uganda. The two-year jump is the second largest for any country on the index, to the delight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government as it prepares for an election due to be held by next May. “We are incentivising those who are doing honest business,” Ramesh Abhishek, an official in the Industries Department of Modi’s government, told a news conference yesterday. India improved on six of the 10 metrics tracked by the World Bank. |