World Bank pauses Doing Business report on data irregularities

NEW DELHI: The World Bank has put on hold the publication of its Doing Business report as it conducts a “systematic review” and probes the data collection irregularities in the annual study that ranks countries' business and investment climates.

“A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology,” World Bank said in a statement on Thursday. It added that the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities have been informed.

It said Doing Business indicators and methodology are designed with no single country in mind, but rather to help to improve the overall business climate.


India’s rank went 14 notches up in 2019 at the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index to 63 among 190 countries.

“We will act based on the findings and will retrospectively correct the data of countries that were most affected by the irregularities,” the bank said.

Besides a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business reports, the World Bank Group’s independent Internal Audit function will perform an audit of the processes for data collection.