Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) has criticized the World Bank for its way of examining the country’s efforts to carry out economic reforms saying that the group has accepted only one item out of eight reform measures verified by the chamber and its local branches.
According to a press release by the ICCIMA, the World Bank officials attended a recent video conference in which private sector representatives from across Iran had verified a series of reforms carried out by the Iranian government in recent years.
It said, however, that the Washington-based group had only approved reforms carried out on one economic indicator from a total of eight verified by the chamber and its regional branches.
“The World Bank accepted to include one item out of eight reform measures in its 2021 Doing Business report and the rest were either rejected or were accepted to be included in reports that would be prepared in the upcoming two years,” said the ICCIMA which is the main private sector advocacy group in Iran.
Doing Business report by the World Bank ranks countries based on the level of attractiveness for business investment.
Iran has been critical of the World Bank before for its assessments of the country’s economy. Government officials and businesses have regretted that the international group and its annual reports have dampened foreign investment in Iran by ignoring genuine reforms carried out in the country.
Doing Business reports came under a fresh spotlight in August when the World Bank decided to halt their publication until issues around data collection irregularities used in compiling the reports were cleared.
The move came after a notable economist working for the group accused the reports of being biased against certain governments.
Others have raised criticism about how countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan have sharply improved their economic situation in a matter of a year and jumped nearly 30 places in the 2019 edition of the ranking.