India has moved up one position to become the world’s 7th most-valued ‘nation brand’, with an increase of 32 percent in its brand value to $2.1 billion – the highest among all the top 20 nations on the list. The US remains on the top with a valuation of $19.7 billion, followed by China and Germany at the second and the third positions respectively, as per the annual report on world’s most valuable nation brands compiled by global consultants Brand Finance.

The UK is ranked 4th, Japan is at 5th position and France is 6th on the list. While India and France have moved up one position each since last year, all the top-five countries have retained their respective places.

India is the only country among the BRICS nations to have witnessed an increase in its brand value while the others – Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa – seeing a drop in their respective brand valuations.

India is the second most valued among these emerging economies after China, followed by Brazil, Russia and South Africa. However, the surge of 32 per cent in India’s ‘nation brand value’ is the highest among all the top-20 countries on the list.

China has retained its second position despite a decline of one percent in its brand value to $6.3 billion. Brand Finance said it measures the strength and value of the nation brands of 100 leading countries using a method based on the royalty relief mechanism employed to value the world’s largest companies.

How was the brand value measured?

The nation brand valuation is based on five-year forecasts of sales of all brands in each nation and follows a complex process. The Gross domestic product (GDP) is used as a proxy for total revenues. The report also said that India’s ‘Incredible India’ slogan has worked well while Germany suffered due to the Volkswagen crisis.

According to a new World Bank report released earlier this week, India made the biggest improvement in business regulations among South Asian economies, moving up in the ease of doing business ranking from 134 to 130.