New Zealand ranked best country in the world to start a business

New Zealand is the best country in the world to start a business according to a report published by the World Bank. The ranking was based on an evaluation of procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital to open a new business.

The country placed second out of 183 countries in the list of top economies on the ease of doing business, surpassed only by Singapore.

The study shows that entrepreneurs wanting to start a business in New Zealand should expect to have to go through only one step, compared to the OECD average of 5.7. Additionally, the World Bank report revealed that it can take just one day to start a new business in New Zealand, as opposed to the OECD average of 13 days.

The report, Doing Business 2010, also ranked New Zealand as the top economy in terms of protecting investors. The indicator used for this ranking was the strength of investor protection index: extent of disclosure index, extent of director liability index and ease of shareholder suits index.

The country was also ranked highly on the ease of dealing with construction permits (ranked #5 overall), registering property (where it placed third), getting credit (ranked #4 overall) and paying taxes (#9 overall).

The Doing Business report provides measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 183 countries. The latest figures of this yearly report were released on 9 September 2009.