Doing Business in Mauritius in 2006
The World Bank has recently published an extensive report on doing business in 2006 worldwide (PDF). Mauritius ranked 23rd globally out of 155 countries for the ease of doing business and beating some OECD countries.
Top 30 countries where it is easier to do business:
- New Zealand
- Singapore
- United States
- Canada
- Norway
- Australia
- Hong Kong (China)
- Denmark
- United Kingdom
- Japan
- Ireland
- Iceland
- Finland
- Sweden
- Lithuania
- Estonia
- Switzerland
- Belgium
- Germany
- Thailand
- Malaysia
- Puerto Rico
- Mauritius
- Netherlands
- Chile
- Latvia
- South Korea
- South Africa
- Israel
- Spain
Here are some excerpts:
If you were opening a new business in Lao PDR,the start-up procedures would take 198 days. If you were opening one in Syria, you would have to put up$61,000 in minimum capital—51 times average annual income. If you were building a warehouse in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the fees for utility hook-up and compliance with building regulations would amount to 87 times average income. And if you ran a business in Guatemala, it would take you 1,459 days to resolve a simple dispute in the courts. If you were paying all business taxes in Sierra Leone, they would take 164% of your company’s gross profit.
…
It is not only rich countries that achieve the right balance between safety and costs. Mauritius is among the easiest countries in which to build a warhouse. And it has the same low rate of construction accidents as Hong Kong (China). Construction licenses are just one type of business license. Here they are used as the starting point for the discussion of licensing because construction is among the largest sectors in every economy.
The report contains very-hard-to-get data on countries worldwide. However, the report does not say that, in Mauritius, one does not need a license whatsoever to become a “marchand ambulant” (hawker), start selling on the streets and does not declare any revenue to the tax authorities. C’est la vie!