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Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

doingbusiness.org

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Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#51

Post by apotheon »

whakojacko wrote: post #35
apotheon wrote: post #25

Starting a business in the United States is a little like pulling your own teeth while getting your fingernails trimmed with a wood chipper. The fact that it still ranks fourth overall just indicates how much worse most of the rest of the world is. It's amazing to me that so many nations (the US included) seem to want it to be so difficult for people to succeed in business.

to be honest, it ranks 8th in actually starting a business. The 4th ranking is the overall doing business ranking, which takes other factors into account.

Good point. Thanks for pointing that out.

Still . . . that's within 5% of the top of the list, which is shocking given the obstacles to entrepreneurship in the US.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#52

Post by metamemetics »

nihilocrat wrote: post #26

I'm curious if anyone has worked for a company in Singapore, done lots of business with one, or better yet started one. By these rankings and the stereotypes I've learned it basically seems like a capitalist's paradise, with practically the whole society being pro-business and a gigantic minority of the population (42% according to Wikipedia) being foreign workers/students.

My impression was it used to be a haven for large business. But due to rising costs they are moving nearby to Malaysia and Indonesia and just keeping management offices in Singapore (ex. memc.com). I haven't heard of it attracting young international people looking to do startups primarily because it's not a very liberal society. Chewing gum is illegal and cannabis possession carries a penalty of execution. A sharp contrast to Silicon Valley\California.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#53

Post by sandGorgon »

Just wanted to mention the process of registering a company in India has mostly moved online using the Ministry of Company Affairs website (http://www.mca.gov.in/). The most time consuming thing is acquiring a Digital Certificate (which is how most financial filings are done in India these days), which involves in-person verification.

India recently introduced Limited Liability Partnerships (http://www.llp.gov.in/) which is a much, much simpler way of registering a company, especially in the software field, than anything else (most of it online)

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#54

Post by ursablanco »

dboyd wrote: post #5

My experience in Canada in starting a business agrees with its 2nd place rank. It only took a couple of hours to get an incorporated business setup, as long as it's a numbered company (e.g., 4312341 Alberta Inc., although, I forget what my number was). It's a couple more hours to open a bank account, make a shareholder loan, and get company cheques (sic). All in all, it takes about a morning to have a legal operating…

I agree, in Canada it seems trivial. Perhaps the study presumes some lower level of capacity, literacy or computer ability.

The numbers for 'enforceability of contracts' and 'paying taxes' are absurd. Puts the rest of the results in doubt.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#55

Post by basugasubaku »

patio11 wrote: post #20
barrydahlberg wrote: post #8

My wife is Japanese and when I said I was starting a company she asked me But, how? Are you even allowed to do that? I didn't really understand how you could not be at the time. I guess that's why NZ ranks #1 and Japan ranks #91 for getting started.

One of the big things we did at the tech incubator is tell people how easy it is to start a company -- there isn't a significantly higher paperwork burden or capital requirement these days than there is for a US LLC. (That did not used to be true.) The problem is that this has not hit the mainstream in terms of cultural acceptance yet. I knew this and I was absolutely amazed by the amount of time it took to get my he…

How does one get a visa to be in Japan if they intend to start a company there? It would appear to be difficult to get a visa if you are not already profitable, correct?

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#56

Post by jlees »

Really surprised that the UK ranks 16th on 'Starting a Business' and the US ranks 8th. From what I know, it takes a lot longer, costs more, and tends to involve actual lawyers to open a business in the US. In the UK, I did it all online for £25.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#57

Post by eru »

lionhearted wrote: post #21

Not sure how accurate this list is. Thailand, for instance, requires all businesses to have at least 51% Thai ownership, and I've heard Thai courts are fairly heavily biased towards locals over foreigners. Foreigners can skirt around this a little bit by having 10+ Thai silent partners in different parts of the country that don't know each other who collect a dividend or payment each year without active involvement,…

Those table rankings do have some influence. Germany cleaned up its act partly because of them. E.g. you used to need 10.000 Euro in capital for a limited liability company (a German invention of the 19th century be the way), but they reduced that requirement to 1 Euro plus the need to re-invest a certain part of profits until you reach 10.000 Euro.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#58

Post by eru »

apotheon wrote: post #50
acangiano wrote: post #28

Ranking for the G8 nations: 4 - United States 5 - United Kingdom 8 - Canada 15 - Japan 25 - Germany 31 - France 78 - Italy 120 - Russia With the exception of Russia, which has its roots in communism, Italy is by far the worst G8 country you could start a business in.

Italy and Germany have their (recent) roots in fascism. France has its in . . . well. I'm not going to go there. Note that the UK produced Adam Smith and, to a nontrivial degree, the US, and Canada. The culture and early government of the US in particular was notably influenced by the ideas of Adam Smith as well. What Smith called "economic individualism" is pretty much the foundation of a strong economy, and to the…

Indeed.

Though Italy and Germany and to some extents Japan had some experience with fascism. The current constitution of Germany was heavily influenced by American demands (and the Japanese constitution, too).

You could say that Germany had a strong history of social-monarchy, and then social-democracy. (With some fascism in a 12 year year period and 40 years of socialism in the east.)

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#59

Post by manish »

sandGorgon wrote: post #53

Just wanted to mention the process of registering a company in India has mostly moved online using the Ministry of Company Affairs website ( http://www.mca.gov.in/ ). The most time consuming thing is acquiring a Digital Certificate (which is how most financial filings are done in India these days), which involves in-person verification. India recently introduced Limited Liability Partnerships ( http://www.llp.gov.in/…

I was really sad to see India ranked so low. I remember my friend starting a company by paying Rs 6000 to broker, who took care of all the things. Things work differently in India, if you do not go through a broker, you might take a few weeks :-(

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#60

Post by davidw »

acangiano wrote: post #28

Ranking for the G8 nations: 4 - United States 5 - United Kingdom 8 - Canada 15 - Japan 25 - Germany 31 - France 78 - Italy 120 - Russia With the exception of Russia, which has its roots in communism, Italy is by far the worst G8 country you could start a business in.

This is a small initiative I am promoting with the aim of improving the situation in Italy:

http://www.srlfacile.org

On the off chance that any Italian HN readers haven't seen it yet.

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