The World Bank Group announced yesterday that it has decided to discontinue publication of its “Doing Business” rankings of country business climates after a review of data irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 reports. In a statement, the World Bank said that after the irregularities raised ethical matters involving former bank staff and board officials, the development lender would work on a new approach to assessing countries’ business and investment climates.
In a probe of the “Doing Business” report, the World Bank had called out some of its previous employees, including International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, for applying pressure to boost China’s position in a ranking of economies. China’s position in the 2018 report released in October 2017 should have been seven places lower — at No. 85, rather than remaining at 78 — the World Bank said in a review released in December. “The changes to China’s data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team,” the World Bank said in a report Thursday.
