Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) is the main private sector advocacy group in the country.

Iran’s main private sector advocacy group says the World Bank has accepted one of its studies showing the country has improved its business environment.

A report on the website of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) published on Sunday said that that the World Bank would consider progress made by Iran in carrying out economic reforms in its 2021 version of Doing Business, a report which ranks countries based on the level of attractiveness for business investment.

The ICCIMA report said 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 of the upcoming two years, said the ICCIMA.

Iran has been critical of the World Bank and its way of examining Iran’s efforts to carry out economic reforms. 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.