Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 November 2017
34. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the details of Ireland's ranking overall when compared with small economies in the latest World Bank Doing Business rankings available for 2018; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [47583/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe World Bank’s annual Doing Business report sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations.
The most recent report (published on October 31 2017) shows Ireland has achieved an overall ease of doing business ranking of 17th out of 190 economies, an improvement of one place on last year. Ireland is 4th in the Euro Area and performs strongly, in 7th position, in the EU behind Denmark (3rd), UK (7th), Sweden (10th), Estonia (12th), Finland (13th) and Lithuania (16th). Ireland ranks ahead of key competitors such as Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Israel. New Zealand is ranked 1st and Singapore is ranked 2nd.
This is a positive result for Ireland. It is positive that Ireland’s ranking on starting a business has improved by 2 places to 8th. As benchmarked by the World Bank, Ireland is in the top ten in the world in terms of ease of starting a business, paying taxes and protecting minority investors. It is encouraging that the overall trajectory of Ireland’s competitiveness performance and scores in international measures of competitiveness is generally positive.
The Institute for Management Development measure of competitiveness ranks Ireland 6th most competitive out of 63 economies. Most importantly, the strong performance of clients supported by the enterprise agencies in winning exports, market share and job creation in the face of intense global competition reflects the competitiveness of the environment in which to do business in Ireland.
While we are improving our performance, we cannot be complacent. Other economies continue to reform and we must continue the implementation of high-level reforms to improve the environment for business competitiveness. My objective is to ensure the economy is resilient at sectoral and firm level to deal with imminent competitiveness challenges and to build further on the progress we have made in making it easier to start and run a business in Ireland.
