The World Bank Group said on Thursday 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 will work on a new approach to assessing countries' business and investment climates.
The World Bank further said that after the irregularities raised ethical matters involving former bank staff and board officials, the development lender will work on a new approach to assessing countries' business and investment climates.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was cited by the World Bank in the probe of its periodic “Doing Business” report, Bloomberg reported.
“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.
The bank cited “pressure applied by CEO Georgieva and her advisor, Djankov, to make specific changes to China’s data points in an effort to increase its ranking at precisely the same time the country was expected to play a key role in the bank’s capital increase campaign”.
Georgieva served as chief executive officer of the World Bank prior to moving to head the IMF.
The report, prepared by law firm WilmerHale at the request of the bank's ethics committee, raises concerns about China's influence at the World Bank, and the judgment of Georgieva – now managing director of the International Monetary Fund – and then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.
Georgieva said she disagreed "fundamentally with the findings and interpretations" of the report and had briefed the IMF's executive board.The WilmerHale report cited "direct and indirect pressure" from senior staff in Kim's office to change the report's methodology to boost China's score, and said it likely occurred at his direction.
It said Georgieva, and a key adviser, Simeon Djankov, had pressured staff to "make specific changes to China's data points" and boost its ranking at a time when the bank was seeking China's support for a big capital increase.
Kim did not respond to a request for comment. Djankov could not be immediately reached.
China's ranking in the "Doing Business 2018" report, published in October 2017, rose seven places to 78th after the data methodology changes were made, compared with the initial draft report.
The "Doing Business" report ranks countries based on their regulatory and legal environments, ease of business startups, financing, infrastructure and other business climate measures.