According to the Forbes Best Countries for Business ranking, business in the Netherlands is good, as the country comes in third out of 153 countries.
For the past 12 years, Forbes has annually evaluated the business friendliness of the world’s largest economies. This year, the Forbes Best Countries for Business ranking assesses 153 countries according to 15 factors.
Factors include innovation, property rights, corruption, technology, taxes, market size, infrastructure, quality of life, political risk, personal freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, workforce, investor protection and red tape.
All factors were weighted equally and only the countries which had data for at least 11 of the factors were included. This year’s methodology differs from previous years as stock market performance was removed from the factors and other factors were added.
Coming in first in the 2018 ranking is the United Kingdom. The UK is the third largest economy in Europe and scores highly on personal freedom and technology. The UK also takes a top 10 spot for investor protection and corruption.
Taking second place, just above the Netherlands, is New Zealand. New Zealand scores well on the individual factors of property rights, red tape, corruption and personal freedom.
In third position is the Netherlands. The Netherlands is the sixth biggest economy in the European Union and takes top 10 places for the following factors: property rights, innovation, technology, corruption and personal freedom.
Just after the Netherlands is Sweden. Sweden achieved a top-five ranking for property rights, technology, corruption and personal freedom, and also did well in innovation. Rounding up the top five is Canada. Canada performs particularly well on the factors of personal freedom, red tape, trade freedom, investor protection and corruption. Here are the top 10 Forbes Best Countries for Business:
1. United Kingdom
2. New Zealand
3. The Netherlands
4. Sweden
5. Canada
6. Hong Kong
7. Denmark
8. Ireland
9. Singapore
10. Switzerland
The countries coming in at the bottom of the ranking are Chad, at number 153; Gambia, in 152th position and Haiti at 151. All three countries in the bottom ranked poorly on the red tape factor. Haiti also ranked particularly poorly for investor protection, Gambia for monetary freedom and Chad for tax burden. Here are the bottom 10 of the 2018 Forbes Best Countries for Business:
144. Venezuela
145. Zimbabwe
146. Burundi
147. Guinea
148. Yemen
149. Libya
150. Afghanistan
151. Haiti
152. Gambia
153. Chad