Best places to do business in Europe


Today, most of entrepreneurs and business men will considered Poland the best place to start up a business in Europe.

Why Poland is the best place start up business in Europe?

The highest cost of connected starting or setting up any business is labour. In Poland you have people with PhDs and Masters that will work hard, with creative minds for 3 Euros an hour. Will anybody do that in Canada or Denmark or France? Poland's tax rate is 19% on business, with tax breaks for new and foreign businesses, while Britain, France, Germany its 40%. What about Scandinavia, even higher taxes and higher labour costs. Maybe five times the rate of Poland, and these western countries haved a worker shortage, while Poland and Eastern Europe has a worker surplus and a capital shortage

Most competitive economies in Europe?

Switzerland, Finland and Sweden are the world's most competitive economies and the top European countries to start business. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK are also in the top list. Switzerland rise to number one that reflects the country's institutional environment, excellent infrastructure, efficient markets and high levels of technological innovation. High positions of Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are due to the low levels of public indebtedness than the rest of Europe. Finland, Denmark and Iceland are rated as having the best institutions in the world. Together with Sweden and Norway, they are also in the top ten leagues for health and primary education. Germany and the UK are cited for having a high degree of protection for property rights and judicial systems that rank among the top.

How Easy is it to Set Up a Business?

The World Bank that regularly evaluate the business-friendly economic environment of countries worldwide. The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 183 economies and selected cities around the world. The report includes several criteria important for doing business, such as starting a business, dealing with construction, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, etc.

According to World Bank report, the highest ranked European countries are:
  • UK

  • Denmark

  • Ireland

  • Norway

Corruption, Cronyism, Organized Crime, and other Woes

Corruption is an inherent part of doing business in a number of European countries, especially in Eastern and Southern Europe. But with the exception of Italy and Greece, most other European countries have either a very low or moderate level of corruption, which does not significantly interfere with conducting a successful business.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), an annually published survey of corruption worldwide, is a useful tool to determine how much corruption affects the daily life, politics, and economy in 180 countries worldwide. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is a "survey of surveys", based on 13 different expert and business surveys.
The 2009 ranking shows that Scandinavian and Central European countries have very low corruption, among them.
In southern European countries on the other hand, corruption is much more wide-spread, such as in:
  • Spain

  • Portugal

  • Italy

Eastern and Southeastern European countries also rank fairly low, with Greece Romania, and Bulgaria having the highest perceived corruption in the entire European Union:
  • Greece

  • Romania

  • Bulgaria

It is also interesting to note that the former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe have one of the highest corruption indices in Europe:
  • Russia

  • Ukraine

  • Belarus

Europe's Leading Business Cities

Cushman & Wakefield, a privately held commercial real estate services firm, publishes the European Cities Monitor, an annual survey of Europe's major business centers, based on data and assessments from 500 leading European companies.
The survey focuses on the main topics of : best for business and the best city in which to locate a business today, but the survey also includes a number of other criteria such as quality of life, telecommunications, access to markets, availability and quality of staff, cost of office space and transportation.

London has maintained its first position ever since the beginning of the survey in 1990. Here are the top ten leading business cities cited:
  • 1-London

  • 2-Paris

  • 3-Frankfurt

  • 4-Barcelona

  • 5-Brussels

  • 6-Madrid

  • 7-Munich

  • 8-Amsterdam

  • 9-Berlin

  • 10-Milan

It is notable that Prague and Warsaw have consistently climbed the ranking since joining the EU and in the last survey they reached 21st and 23rd places respectively. According to Cushman & Wakefield, Warsaw can expect the biggest influx of companies in the next five years, replacing Moscow in popularity. But it is not only the overall ranking that is important, but also the individual categories that are part of it. Warsaw ranks high among European capitals in terms of cost of qualified staff, low cost and availability of office space, and a positive business climate created by the government. London, on the other hand, although still ranked as Europe's number one business city by the European Cities Monitor, ranks low on the cost of staff, the cost of office space and levels of pollution.