NZ 2nd place country to do business in

The Herald reports:

New Zealand has been named the world’s second best country to do business in, behind only resurgent Ireland in the annual list compiled by Forbes’ magazine.

The survey found New Zealand had the best scores among all countries for personal freedom and investor protection, as well as lack of red tape and corruption. …

Despite being the smallest economy to make the top 10, with an annual Gross Domestic Product of US$170 billion, New Zealand was one of the fastest growing last year with GDP jumping by 2.5 per cent.

Unless we vote for tax hikes, more debt and spending, and nationalisation.

The index is based on 11 factors, and the ranking for NZ for each is:

  1. property rights – 2nd
  2. innovation – 25th
  3. taxes – 21st
  4. technology – 24th
  5. corruption – 1st
  6. personal freedom – 1st
  7. trade freedom – 10th
  8. monetary freedom – 9th
  9. red tape – 1st
  10. investor protection – 1st
  11. stock market performance – 36th

So the areas for improvement are innovation, technology and reducing the tax burden – plus improving the stock market performance.