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Best place to do business?

A study was released by the World Bank last week examining the best places in the World to do business. Of interest is the fact that two small economies, namely Singapore (pictured) and New Zealand, were top of the list yet again. In contrast, the UK had slipped down to 6th place, being overtaken by Hong Kong.

In terms of starting a business, countries such as Canada, Australia and Ireland were also above the UK, which was ranked 9th globally.

For Wales, this raises the issue of whether we will ever be an attractive place to do business under the current financial and economic powers held by the Assembly. Certainly, there is growing discontent over the fact that we only have grants as the main weapon in competing with other nations for business. More importantly, the value of grants in attracting knowledge-based companies, seems to be declining every year.

Comments

Rhys Wynne said…
I don't see that grants can provide any long term benefits. Leighton Andrews posted on his blog about offering a grant to Burberry [sp?] to stay in Treorci. I understand that he want's to do all he can to keep jobs in his constituency, but the company is already making profits, and they just want to make even more. Any grant would just top up their profits, and then they'd think about leaving again.

What other 'weapons' woild you like to see - being able to set our own business tax?
September 11, 2006 12:43 pm
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