India leaped 23 places to the 77th position on the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' ranking as GST, insolvency framework and tax reforms made the country more investor-friendly.
Buoyed by the improvement, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the country can break into the top 50 if it made it easier to start a business and improved on contract enforcement.
India was ranked 142nd among 190 nations when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. At that time, the country was battling perceptions of excess red-tape and policy paralysis.
Four years of reform pushed up India's rank to 100th in World Bank's 'Doing Business' 2018 report. It was 130th in 2017 when it was ranked lower than Iran and Uganda.
In its annual 'Doing Business' 2019 report, the World Bank said India improved its rank on six out of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. Grant of a construction permit, trading across the borders, starting a business, getting credit, getting electricity and enforcing contracts showed improvement.
In the 2019 ranking, New Zealand tops the list, followed by Singapore, Denmark and Hong Kong. The United States is placed 8th and China ranked at 46th. Neighbouring Pakistan is placed at 136.
In New Delhi, Jaitley said a focussed approach would ensure getting within "the 50th rank target is not out of reach."
"The obvious area and target for improvement are registering property, starting a business, insolvency, and taxation and the fifth one is enforcement of the contract," he said. "Legislation is already in place with regard to enforcement of contract, taxation, and insolvency...starting a business central government and state governments have to work together..."
Stating that a well-designed insolvency framework is a vital determinant of debt recovery, it said the establishment of debt recovery tribunals in India "reduced non-performing loans by 28 per cent and lowered interest rates on larger loans, suggesting that faster processing of debt recovery cases cut the cost of credit."