Skip to main content

Doing business is easier says India Inc

By
Doing business is easier  says India Inc
Top CEOs have cheered India´s improved position in the World Bank´s ranking of countries on ease of doing business, and said the situation on the ground has improved considerably in the past few years andasuccessful rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) will help the country further improve its rankings in the coming years.
In a survey of 20 CEOs from across the nation on Wednesday, 80 per cent of them were of the view that due to a series of reforms undertaken by the Narendra Modi government, it had become easier to do business.According to the World Bank report, India improved its rankings in six of the 10 subcategories used by the institution to judge the business climate.
In some categories such as paying taxes, resolving insolvency, getting credit, and protecting minority shareholders, the ranking jumped significantly.India´s overall rank in ease of doing business jumped from 130 last year to 100 this year.Seventy five percent of the CEOs surveyed said though the GST rollout was facing teething problems, it had helped remove the trade barriers across the states.
Businesses don´t have to deal with multiple tax structures and octroi toll booths in Mumbai, which were known for corruption and obstructing supply chains.“Earlier, trucks in India were moving 40 per cent of the time and standing 60 per cent of the time.After the GST, goods are moving 60 per cent of the time and standing 40 per cent of the time,” saidaCEO.
Nirmal Jain, chairman, IIFL, said, “Indians are skeptical about India, but the world is taking note of India´s strides.As the GST settles, we will see further up move.” The CEOs were, however, unanimous that some parameters such as construction permits, enforcing contracts and registering properties needed improvement.
For this, they suggested that the entire process be automated so that the regulatory delays by officials did not hold up multibillion dollar projects.“Despite the lack of demand, real estate prices in big cities like Mumbai are not falling as builders have to payalot of cash in getting construction permits.The entire process should be made online so that permits are granted easily and off the shelf,” said the CEO of a real estate financing firm.
The World Bank report also highlighted that India´s rank in areas such as startingabusiness, enforcing contracts, and dealing with construction permits was below 150.“Dematerialisation of land records, automatic approval of construction permit and government backed title insurance scheme will goalong way in curbing corruption in the real estate sector,” said JC Sharma, vicechairman &MD, Sobha Developers.
Sixty per cent of the CEOs also said corruption was not coming in the way of doing business, while 40 per cent said it was. CEOs said that in the coming years, transaction enforcement needed to be strengthened and corruption needed to be addressed urgently.“Today, corruption at municipal corporations, electricity boards, pollution control board, and environment clearances at local levels are major challenges for companies,” said a Chennaibased CEO
The  Business Standard, New Delhi, 2nd November 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more