PHL says ranking in World Bank Ease of Doing Business report inaccurate, demands correction

The Philippines wants the World Bank to make an immediate correction on its Ease of Doing Business (EODB) 2019 report because of its "inaccurate and understated" assessment of the country, which could impact on investments.

In the report, the Philippines' ranking dropped 11 notches from 113 in 2018 to 124th in 2019, with an overall score of 57.68.

The Philippines' "Getting Credit" score flopped from 30 points in 2018 to only 5 points in the latest survey--sending the country's indicator to the bottom tier at 184th out of 190 economies.

The Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) demanded the World Bank to make an immediate correction on its report.

According to the DOF and DTI, inaccurate and understated findings in the "Getting Credit" indicator of the report led to the drop of the Philippine's overall EODB ranking.

"This correction should be done soon as this could unduly compromise the Philippines’ standing among the investment community and negatively impact the country’s development, considering that this document is widely used as a reference by investors and survey organizations," the agencies said in a joint statement.

"As a highly respected institution, the World Bank has a responsibility to ensure that an economy is not unduly disadvantaged and that its report reflect the realities on the ground," they added.

The DOF and DTI elaborated that the World Bank's survey team failed to include some credit bureaus in its data gathering which led to the substantial decline in the country's score on the "Getting Credit" indicator.

"The Philippines should have obtained a higher score if the World Bank included data from all the credit bureaus—the BAP Credit Bureau Inc., TransUnion Information Solutions, Inc., and Microfinance Information Data Sharing Inc. (MIDAS), to name a few. Instead, it obtained its data only from the BAP Credit Bureau Inc, which has the smallest database of 1.7 million borrower-entrepreneurs," the statement said.

It added that the latest score of the Philippines in the "Getting Credit" indicator was quite ironic as credit in the country was growing year-on-year by 19 percent.

The statement also underscored that the country posted increases in seven out of 10 of the indicators.

Furthermore, based on a stimulation conducted by DTI, the Philippines' rank in the said report would be in the range of 101-108 (vs #124) if its "Getting Credit" score is adjusted. — LDF, GMA News