The second-generation reforms undertaken by India have not kept pace with those in the other countries, World Economic Forum's chief economist, Augusto Lopez Claros said on Monday.

He added that the country was ranked 37 among 102 nations in business competitiveness mainly due to infrastructure bottlenecks and bureaucracy.

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India could make only marginal improvement in creating growth competitiveness in spite of substantial progress recorded in the last decade, and more needs to be done in terms of consolidation of public finance and building of social infrastructure, Claros said.

However, as per the WEF Growth Competitiveness ranking, India has improved its position to 53 from 54 among the 102 countries, he said.

Asked as to what could help improve the position, he said more needs to be done about public finance consolidation since public sector deficit has been an ongoing problem and, "It cannot go on forever".

Also there should be further infusion of resources into the social infrastructure, especially into the education of women, Claros said.

The focus should be on the primary and secondary education, he said referring to Finland, ranked first in the Growth Competitiveness Ranking.

The WEF Growth Competitiveness Ranking Index takes into account various parameters including recession expectation, fiscal deficit, availability of credit, inflation, effective exchange rate and interest rate spread.

Comparing India's growth competitiveness with that of China, Claros said definitely India has done commendable work in reforms but the rest of the world has outpaced it with their development and reforms.

The WEF official was appreciative of the trends in inflation and interest rates, which has been heading downwards, but expressed concern over the fiscal deficit.

On the fiscal deficit, Carlos said the states were less disciplined than the Centre.

India's consolidated fiscal deficit of both Centre and states stands at over 10 per cent of GDP.

Claros said more focus should be laid on the quality of government spending rather than public finance per se.

The quality could be gauged through analysing the extent of distorted government subsidies, diversion of public funds and public trust in financial probity of politicians, he said.