World Bank halts country business climate rankings

Washington: The World Bank said on Thursday it was pausing publication of its Doing Business report to probe data collection irregularities in the closely watched annual ranking of countries’ business and investment climates. The World Bank said in a statement that it would conduct a systematic review of data changes in the last five Doing Business reports, and independent auditors will probe data collection and review processes. “The publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment,” the bank said.

The Doing Business report has long been controversial because it ranks countries based on indicators of how their government bureaucracies and regulations affect - and often limit - their attractiveness as destinations for business investment. It came under fire in early 2018 when the World Bank’s then-chief economist, Paul Romer, said methodological changes to the report may have been biased against Chile’s socialist president at the time, Michelle Bachelet. The report published in 2017 dropped Chile to 55th from 34th in 2014, when Bachelet took office.