Get your ideas, business plan, financial forecast, contacts together because New Zealand has been ranked Number one for the ease of starting a business according to the World Bank ‘Doing Business 2009’ Report. If you have dreamed of starting your own business or had an itch to try out a new idea or product then you are in the right place. Not only does New Zealand rank number one in the ‘ease of starting’ a business but we are also ranked second (a close finish behind Singapore) for ease of ‘doing’ business. That gives New Zealand a competitive advantage over the other 181 countries surveyed.
The report was analyzed based on the level of difficulty to comply with 10 different sets of business regulations. New Zealand scored its top place for ease of compliance thanks to a new joint venture between the NZ Companies Office and Inland Revenue. These organizations have created a system where you can now apply for a GST and a Registration number at the same point of contact and the result is that starting your own business has never been easier.
If that’s not enough to convince you to take on that small business idea then perhaps these statistics might help:
There were 471,000 businesses operating in New Zealand as at February 2008, 97% of those businesses are small businesses and employee less than 20 people.
62,000 businesses were started up in February 2007, 83% of those businesses were still operating the following year.
Of the 43,000 new businesses that started operation in 2001, 67% were still operating two years later.
New businesses with paid employees had a higher chance of surviving this period (53 percent for those with one to five employees) than businesses with no employees (33 percent).
(www.stats.govt.nz, New Zealand Business Demography Statistics: February 2008).
To add to this, America, Singapore and New Zealand are also the friendliest countries to conduct business with, AND entrepreneurialism and creativity are both highly respected and valued amongst these counties. Those countries ranked in the top 10 for ease of doing business also include (in order) Singapore, the United States, Hong King, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and Norway, with some of the 10 worst countries including The Congo, Central Africa, Chad, Venezuela and Niger.