Ease of Doing Business Across the World

Doing Business assesses country regulations applied to small- and medium-size enterprises across 10 major areas of doing business from the registration of new entity to the resolving insolvency. Thriving small- and medium-size enterprises are one of the major drivers behind the creation of new jobs and growth of national wealth. That is why governments should provide such enterprises with prosperous environment, i.e. the rules that guarantee low transactional costs of time and money as well as predictability of economic interaction between the stakeholders. Thus, low costs of starting a business alone does not necessarily mean efficient regulations since absence of minority investors protection regulations or getting credit opportunities may considerably constrict firm's financing capability and, as a result, its growth potential. On average around the world, starting a business requires 25 days, 7 procedures and costs 32% of income per capita in fees. And while it takes half a day and one procedure to register new business in New Zealand, in Suriname the same procedure requires 208 days.

Source: World Bank Doing Business 2014