The World Bank/IFC publish regularly reports about the ease of doing business in over 180 countries of the world. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory
environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local
firm. This index averages the country's percentile rankings on 10
topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each
topic. The latest rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2011.
My basic assumption is that the easier it is to do business in a country, the more business will be done in that country. If one were to disagree with that assumption, we would really have a disagreement. I am not saying that a high ranking guarantees success but I am definitely saying that a low ranking indicates that something is wrong at home. And that the fixing has to start at home and not abroad.
Below are the latest rankings:
I hope I have made my point sufficiently clear that Greece MUST start doing something at home other than cutting purchasing power of those who are taxed at the source. It is urgent for Greece to make plans for becoming a better place to do business!
My basic assumption is that the easier it is to do business in a country, the more business will be done in that country. If one were to disagree with that assumption, we would really have a disagreement. I am not saying that a high ranking guarantees success but I am definitely saying that a low ranking indicates that something is wrong at home. And that the fixing has to start at home and not abroad.
Below are the latest rankings:
| Country | Rank |
| Denmark | 5 |
| UK | 7 |
| Ireland | 10 |
| Finland | 11 |
| Sweden | 14 |
| Germany | 19 |
| Latvia | 21 |
| Estonia | 24 |
| Lithuania | 27 |
| Belgium | 28 |
| France | 29 |
| Portugal | 30 |
| Netherlands | 31 |
| Austria | 32 |
| Slovenia | 37 |
| Cyprus | 40 |
| Spain | 44 |
| Slovakia | 48 |
| Luxemburg | 50 |
| Hungary | 51 |
| Bulgaria | 59 |
| Poland | 62 |
| Czech Republic | 64 |
| Romania | 72 |
| Italy | 87 |
| Greece | 100 |
I hope I have made my point sufficiently clear that Greece MUST start doing something at home other than cutting purchasing power of those who are taxed at the source. It is urgent for Greece to make plans for becoming a better place to do business!
As long as there is the pending threat of being ousted from the euro (either by Germany or by impossibility of the greek state to stay in the euro), nobody will invest seriously in Greece ,even if it was no.1.
ReplyDeleteNo investor sane in mind, will put money in a country that in 1 month may be forced out of the euro and adopt new, devalued currency, after a plain default.
For the same reason, the troika's "masterplans" for selling 50bln of state assets, are dreams and i am amazed of who those troika people are that actually BELIEVE that someone will start buying like there is no tomorrow companies, land, buildings, while he is not sure that this is as low as the market will go.
These things are simply butter on Tsipra's bread, when he says that the current program is dead-end and will mathematically lead to... default and exit from the euro.
So, many Greeks voted Tsipras exactly saying that "with the current plan we will default too, so what's to be afraid from Tsipras?"
Bandolero
On a sidenote, the greek goverment can do little without troika agreement... Samaras for example has plans to lower enterprise taxation, since everybody else around (up to Cyprus) has much lower taxation. The question is: will the troika allow it?
ReplyDeleteTo this day, we 've seen an incredible mess of incompetence between the greek goverment and the troika. Still beats me, why the troika didn't focus since day 1, into the reforming of the tax offices. Instead they were insisting mainly on the internal devaluation procedure, by raising twice the VAT (even though the tax revenue was diminishing), taxes and cuts in pensions and salaries.
Bandolero.