In a conversation with a reporter, I made comments about the Doing Business report that gave the impression that I suspected political manipulation or bias. This was not what I meant to say or thought I said. I have not seen any sign of manipulation of the numbers published in Doing Business report or in any other Bank report.

What I did want to say is something many of us in the Bank believe–that we could do a better job of explaining what our numbers mean.

In the production of the Doing Business report, we changed our methods for solid reasons. These changes were carefully considered. But when we implemented the changes, we could have explained more clearly why, for example, Chile’s ranking fell.

We already made DB 2018 easier to understand by sticking with the methods of DB 2017. To be more transparent, we have also published more the underlying data and more of the details behind the calculations.

There will, of course, always be room to explain ourselves more clearly. I’m sorry that in my attempt at promoting clarity, I myself was not clear.