India has surged to 55th position in the latest Global Competitiveness Index released by Geneva based non-profit organization World Economic Forum. The jump is the most dramatic to have happened in any international scorecard for India in recent years. The ranking is the best position the country has reached ever in this list. In 2012-13 it was at the 59th position but then in the next two years it slipped to 71st rank in the global league of 144 countries which figure in the list. According to the WEF, India’s recovery is based on improvement in the scores for institutions and improvement in infrastructure. “A very welcome aspect of this recovery is the fact that great improvement has been noted in terms of India’s institutions (60th out of 140 countries; up 10 year-on-year). India’s competitiveness has also been helped by a slight improvement in infrastructure (up 6 to 81) and in its macroeconomic environment (91) which has been helped by a reduction in commodity prices and improvement in the government’s budget deficit”. India has been keen to show a strong improvement in its performance in several of these global indicators. The one that it has been tracking particularly is the World Bank affiliate IFC run score sheet, the Ease of Doing Business. The list is expected to come out in October. The government has already run a domestic ranking of its states on some of the same yardsticks and hopes to make it an annual affair. Many of the WEF measurements are the same as that of IFC. The WEF has noted that to stay the course India has to correct its level of budget deficits, the quality of its electricity supply where it ranks at the 91st rank. “And, surprisingly for a country with so many IT champions, the overall technology readiness of its businesses….comes in at a poor 120, up just one position on 2014”. The survey conducted largely among the top executives has also found corruption followed by political instability and inflation, “as the most problematic factor to doing business in the country”.
