'Ease of Doing Business' ranking: Top 10 improvers

New Delhi, Oct 31: This year's top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken, are Afghanistan, Djibouti, China, Azerbaijan, India, Togo, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Turkey and Rwanda. With six reforms each, Djibouti and India are in top 10 for a second consecutive year.

Afghanistan and Turkey, top improvers for the first time, implemented record single-year reforms, with five and seven, respectively.

In notable changes to the top 20 ranked economies this year, UAE joined the grouping for first time, in 11th place, while Malaysia & Mauritius regain spots, in 15th & 20th places, respectively.

During the past year, Malaysia implemented six reforms, Mauritius five, and the UAE four. The reforms in Mauritius included the elimination of a gender-based barrier to equalize the field between men and women in starting a business:

In a first for South Asia, two of the region's economies earned coveted spots in the global top improvers. India continued its reform agenda and advanced 23 spots to 77th place. India is now the region's top-ranked economy.

Afghanistan, with 5 reforms, moved up 16 spots to 167th place in the global rankings. Collectively, the region's economies carried out 19 reforms in the past year.