Release of World Bank 'Doing Business' report halted over fudging of data

WASHINGTON: The World Bank has halted the release of the 'Doing Business' report after discrepancies were reported in the changes to the data published in October 2017 and 2019.

China along with three other countries -- Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia-- appeared to have been inappropriately altered their data, a WSJ report said.

World Bank has asked its independent internal auditors to probe processes for data collection and review the report to maintain data integrity, it said.


A statement said that the World Bank will act based on the findings of the probe and retrospectively correct the data of countries that were most affected by the irregularities.

India was among the countries which witnessed the "most notable improvement" as per the 'Doing Business' 2020 report released in October 2019 with 63rd rank in the ease of doing business.