New
Delhi: Here is an area where India leads China - economic
freedom to businessmen on the choice of the business they
wish to pursue. India, which improved its global ranking
to 69 among 141 countries in providing economic choices
on business and competition, particularly since its economic
reforms of 1991, is substantially ahead of China''s 86th
position.
However,
the ranking also marks a substantial slip for India from
the 60th position, which it had reached in 2004. Among
the five components of the EFW index, the largest increase
for India is in "Freedom to Trade Internationally,"
that enabled India to improve its score to 7.0 in 2005
from 3.9 in 1990.
According
to the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) annual report
2007 that evaluates countries on the basis of the degree
of freedom it provided in 2005 to choose and pursue business,
India scored 6.6 points out of 10 to reach the 69th position,
China was 17 ranks below with a score of 6.3 for the year.
The
report noted that in 1990, India was rated at 4.9 out
of 10 to rank 80, in 2005 it improved to 6.6, making it
one of the largest improvements in the last 15 years for
any country.
As
a global index, it measures the degree to which policies
and institutions of these countries are supportive of
economic freedom, which includes elements like personal
choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete and security
of privately owned property.
Hong
Kong and Singapore, once again as in the past year, lead
the 10 top ten that includes New Zealand, Switzerland,
the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Estonia,
Ireland and Australia.
Commerce
minister Kamal Nath noted while releasing the report for
2007, that such studies help governments in making policy
reforms and added that without justice sustainable freedom
could not be achieved.
also see : General
reports on Economy General
reports on Trade
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