What singles out the top 10 best nations to do business?
United States – which is the world’s largest economy – secured the sixth place
Twelve hours and one procedure – that is all you need to start a business in New Zealand.
Among 190 countries around the world, New Zealand holds the shortest time and the lowest number of procedures required to start a business.
This, among other attractive features, has helped the island nation top the Doing Business 2020 index released by the World Bank. It secured a score of 86.8 out of 100.
Compared to New Zealand, it takes 100 days and 18 procedures to start a business in countries that have the worst regulatory performance in these two indicators.
The worst performance in number of procedures is defined as the 99th percentile among all economies in the Doing Business sample. The worst performance in number of days is defined as the 95th percentile among all economies in the Doing Business sample.
With a score of 86.2, Singapore was named the second-best place to do business. It is followed by Hong Kong and China, with both countries sharing the third position.
There are three Nordic nations – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – on the top 10 list. Sweden is ranked 10th while the United States – which is the world's largest economy – secured the sixth place.
The United Kingdom scored 83.5 and came out as the eighth best place to launch a start-up.
One of the salient features of the high scorers on the index is the widespread use of electronic systems. All of the 20 top-ranking economies have online business incorporation processes, have electronic tax filing platforms, and allow online procedures related to property transfers.
Moreover, 11 economies have electronic procedures for construction permitting.
In general, the 20 top performers have sound business regulation with a high degree of transparency. The average scores of these economies are 12.2 (out of 15) on the building quality control index, 7.2 (out of 8) on the reliability of supply and transparency of tariffs index, 24.8 (out of 30) on the quality of land administration index, and 13.2 (out of 18) on the quality of judicial processes index.
Fourteen of the 20 top performers have a unified collateral registry, and 14 allow a viable business to continue operating as a going concern during insolvency proceedings.
