With an overall score of only 11%, this ranking puts Bangladesh almost at the bottom to start a business, said the report – released by the US-based GEDI (Global Entrepreneurship and Development) Institute yesterday.
The GEI measures a country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by combining individual data such as opportunity recognition, start-up skills and risk acceptance, with institutional measures, including urbanisation, education and economic freedom.
This year it included four new components of the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem: Digital Citizenship, Digital Governance, Digital Marketplace and Digital Business.
The top of the rankings were dominated by the countries in the innovation-driven stage of development. The United States topped the rankings again this year, with a GEI score of 83.4 – a slight drop from its score of 86.2 in the previous year. It was followed by (in order): Switzerland (78.0), Canada (75.6), Sweden (75.5), Denmark (74.1), Iceland (73.5), Australia (72.5), the United Kingdom (71.3), Ireland (71.0) and the Netherlands (67.8).
India (25.8) enjoyed the largest jump in the rankings, moving to 29th from last year’s 69th. Among other south Asian countries, Sri Lanka is 94th and Pakistan 122nd.
Tunisia (40.5) had the second largest jump, from 62nd to 42nd. China (36.3) moved up 12 spots to 48th. Taiwan, the highest Asian country, is in 16th place, Singapore in 24th,
“China and India are strengthening their entrepreneurial ecosystems and creating billion dollar start-ups while Malaysia, Iceland and the Baltic states are emerging as digital entrepreneurship leaders,” said Zoltan Acs, co-author of the report and university professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
“While institutional variables still need to be strengthened in emerging economies—where individuals are running ahead of policymakers—in developed countries. In other words, not enough people in developed countries—including the United States—are starting productive high-growth businesses.”
Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Global Entrepreneur Network, said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg of the digital disruption revolution unfolding.”
“The promise of jobs, economic growth and the optimism and hope that entrepreneurs bring to government efforts to create opportunity and prosperity for their citizens, have generated an extraordinary increase in attention from all levels of government in empowering their entrepreneurial ecosystems.”