World Bank Corrects Country Rankings After Probe of Altered Data
- Changes affect China, three others in ‘Doing Business’ ratings
- People who worked on report cited undue management pressure
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The World Bank corrected two recent reports ranking nations by ease of doing business, adjusting the scores for China and three other countries based on an internal audit following staffers’ allegations of “undue pressure” by management to alter ratings.
In the 2018 report released in October 2017, China should have been shown dropping seven places to 85th rather than remaining 78th, the lender said in a review released on Wednesday. Corrections to data for the 2020 report, released in October 2019, meant that Saudi Arabia would not have been the top improving economy, while Azerbaijan would have moved up and been one of the top 10 improvers.