An independent panel will advise the World Bank to scrap the overall ranking of countries in its controversial Doing Business report, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But in a compromise that is likely to please neither opponents nor supporters, the panel’s draft recommendations say the bank should keep ranking countries based on individual aspects of their small business regulation, such as the difficulty of getting a construction permit.
The proposed change would strip out the highest-profile element of Doing Business – the ranking that puts Singapore number one in the world and the Central African Republic number 185 – but keep all the information needed to produce it.