Archive for the Business Category

Best Countries for Business 2013

By mjose | Filed in Business, Marketing

For the second year in a row, Bloomberg Rankings presents its exclusive analysis of countries around the world based on how attractive they are to business. With its relatively low cost of starting a business, as well as its import and export efficiencies, among other factors, Hong Kong again takes top honors. The U.S. moves up a notch from last year to second place, and Japan jumps from seventh to No. 3.

For this study, Bloomberg Rankings analyzed data from 11 sources. In all, 161 nations were ranked on six broad criteria that included the cost of starting a business, the cost of labor and materials and the cost of moving goods. The study also considered each country’s level of global economic integration, the “readiness” of its consumer base to participate in economic activity and “less tangible” costs such as inflation and accounting adaptability.

Again, the so-called BRIC countries make a relatively poor showing. China drops to 24th place from 19th last year. India, Russia and Brazil don’t even clear the top 50, ranking Nos. 54, 56 and 61, respectively.

2012 Rankk 2011 Rankk Country Score Degree
of econ.
integrat.		 Cost of
setting
up a
business		 Cost of
labor &
material		 Cost of
moving
goods		 Less-tangible
costs		 Readiness
of local
consumer
base
1 1 Hong Kong 79.6% 75.3% 96.7% 61.8% 88.6% 79.7% 67.4%
2 3 United States 77.0% 82.1% 82.3% 76.7% 85.2% 67.2% 65.4%
3 7 Japan 75.6% 82.3% 70.8% 78.2% 81.1% 66.6% 80.0%
4 2 Netherlands 75.3% 70.1% 71.6% 69.0% 87.7% 78.6% 69.3%
5 6 Germany 74.6% 82.9% 61.8% 73.5% 87.4% 71.3% 75.2%
6 5 Australia 74.4% 79.2% 70.3% 73.0% 81.4% 73.1% 69.2%
6 12 Canada 74.4% 65.1% 71.8% 68.5% 86.2% 75.9% 74.0%
8 9 Singapore 74.0% 57.9% 90.4% 52.2% 87.9% 77.3% 66.7%
9 17 Denmark 73.8% 77.9% 84.4% 60.1% 73.2% 79.0% 66.7%
10 4 United Kingdomm 73.4% 82.7% 69.0% 71.4% 81.7% 70.2% 66.7%
11 9 Austria 73.2% 79.2% 80.7% 66.8% 72.4% 71.0% 70.6%
12 14 Sweden 72.8% 78.2% 69.2% 70.8% 76.0% 73.3% 71.7%
13 13 Belgium 72.5% 70.7% 85.6% 68.6% 81.2% 58.3% 66.8%
14 8 France 71.9% 75.8% 72.1% 69.7% 81.5% 63.4% 69.7%
15 16 Finland 71.4% 75.1% 59.9% 68.1% 79.5% 76.9% 69.7%
16 21 Spain 71.0% 72.1% 66.8% 71.3% 81.5% 65.4% 67.4%
17 11 Switzerland 70.0% 71.3% 70.5% 65.3% 67.3% 76.3% 69.5%
17 24 United Arab Emirates 70.0% 69.1% 59.0% 64.3% 90.9% 71.0% 60.2%
19 18 Norway 69.8% 81.8% 66.9% 59.7% 67.5% 78.0% 72.2%
20 22 Poland 69.7% 77.0% 63.7% 71.2% 68.6% 67.9% 77.0%
21 29 South Korea 69.6% 56.2% 69.8% 72.9% 78.6% 63.6% 69.5%
22 26 Ireland 69.2% 54.5% 77.3% 63.4% 68.6% 79.0% 61.2%
23 20 Italy 68.6% 69.7% 77.8% 71.2% 70.4% 55.6% 66.8%
24 19 China 68.5% 80.3% 73.3% 70.8% 82.5% 43.7% 64.4%
24 15 Luxembourg 68.5% 39.1% 89.4% 45.9% 75.1% 81.1% 62.4%
26 22 Chile 67.9% 65.7% 74.1% 60.5% 72.6% 71.3% 56.7%
27 29 Qatar 67.1% 62.9% 63.7% 65.6% 76.5% 68.8% 59.3%
28 32 Malaysia 66.7% 73.7% 69.2% 63.5% 80.8% 52.8% 60.6%
29 37 NewZealand 66.3% 74.6% 68.6% 44.1% 74.5% 76.5% 60.7%
30 29 Portugal 66.1% 54.7% 74.3% 57.0% 73.4% 69.3% 58.1%
31 27 Hungary 65.8% 61.1% 73.3% 68.7% 58.1% 65.6% 65.9%
32 46 Cyprus 65.7% 55.5% 76.0% 49.6% 66.4% 72.9% 71.9%
33 34 Czech Republic 65.1% 68.7% 63.3% 70.0% 62.8% 60.4% 69.5%
34 25 SouthAfrica 64.7% 56.5% 65.7% 71.0% 76.0% 59.2% 46.4%
35 55 Slovenia 63.9% 52.3% 65.6% 56.4% 68.9% 70.4% 63.8%
36 28 Latvia 63.5% 60.6% 74.7% 61.5% 66.3% 53.9% 61.7%
37 40 Lithuania 63.1% 57.6% 62.8% 62.9% 72.4% 54.6% 67.9%
38 41 Turkey 62.9% 70.4% 59.8% 66.9% 73.3% 41.5% 75.1%
39 59 Iceland 62.8% 36.0% 73.0% 46.4% 70.6% 73.5% 65.2%
39 41 Israel 62.8% 68.0% 67.8% 58.5% 65.1% 59.2% 58.5%
41 52 Mauritius 62.7% 34.7% 83.5% 47.9% 67.8% 62.8% 68.9%
42 44 Saudi Arabia 62.6% 67.3% 57.3% 61.9% 77.6% 54.3% 56.3%
43 43 Bulgaria 62.2% 65.9% 67.3% 62.9% 55.5% 59.2% 66.2%
43 34 Estonia 62.2% 57.6% 70.7% 55.8% 64.8% 60.3% 61.8%
43 53 Greece 62.2% 67.8% 59.2% 60.5% 64.5% 60.8% 64.0%
43 60 Thailand 62.2% 72.7% 74.1% 61.9% 73.3% 39.4% 51.6%
47 57 Bahrain 62.0% 53.8% 58.0% 47.4% 77.2% 76.0% 48.6%
47 32 Romania 62.0% 75.5% 54.6% 71.2% 56.7% 52.8% 74.2%
49 62 Croatia 61.9% 63.2% 65.1% 54.3% 63.4% 63.2% 63.9%
49 56 Peru 61.9% 60.4% 63.4% 66.5% 63.1% 54.6% 63.1%

Countries are ranked on a scale from 0 to 100 percent on six factors.

1. Degree of economic integration (weighting of 10%)

Includes membership in the World Trade Organization, most-favored nation tariffs, correlation to the global market, market concentration, reach of global market research and country risk.

2. Cost of setting up a business (20%)

Includes the costs, steps and time required, as well as financing a business and foreign direct investment.

3. Cost of labor and material (20%)

Includes cost of labor (productivity, compensation, health expenditures, firing costs, minimum wage and size of labor force) and cost of material (natural resource rate of depletion and natural resource rent).

4. Cost of moving goods (20%)

Includes import and export efficiencies, transportation efficiency, logistics performance, liner shipping connectivity and quality of port infrastructure.

5. Less tangible costs (20%)

Includes corruption perception index, international property rights index, inflation, taxes and accounting adaptability.

6. Readiness of the local consumer base (10%)

Includes size of middle class, household consumption, tariff on imports and GDP per capita.

Scores for individual factors were calculated by using the percentage of the maximum for index-based and qualitative criteria. In the 2011 ranking, scores were calculated on a percent-rank basis.

Sources: Bloomberg, CIA World Factbook, Conference Board, Heritage Foundation, International Monetary Fund, International Labor Organization, Transparency International, United Nations, World Bank, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization.

But this info is not very accurate because by example Spain´s GDP is 30% larger than S.Korea at Nominal prices, for example. Unemployment increased from 9% to 26% during the four years of economic adjustment (not 50%), but precisely now the economy is much more productive. Labor costs have fallen and productivity has increased.

Some Spanish companies are among the biggest and more efficient in the World.
1. Inditex (Zara) is the largest cloth retaling company in the World.
2. Telefonica is the largest and more profitable Telecom company in the Eurozone (larger than Deutsche Telekom).
3. Santander is the largest and more profitable bank in the Eurozone (a third larger than Deutsche Bank)
4. Grupo ACS is the largest construction company in Europe (recently bought Hotchief, the largest construction company in Germany)
5. Acerinox is the largest company in the World in the area of stainless steel.
6. Iberdrola is the largest company in the World in the area of renewables.
7. INDRA is the largest European company in the area of flight simulators.
8. Airbus Military has its headquarters in Spain, which is the third shareholder of AIRBUS…etc, etc.

Public Debt is 10 points lower than the U.S. or the U.K., and already got a trade surplus with the rest of the E.U. Spain enjoys the second High-Speed networkd in the World, and Spanish companies like OHL are building the Saudi Arabian high speed railway, and also Spanish companies are enlarging the Panama Canal.

Spain´s life expectancy is 12 in the World while the U.S. is just 40.

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