Singapore inches up Bloomberg’s rankings

Singapore has jumped up the list of the world’s most attractive places to do business, despite higher labour and material costs.

According to Bloomberg’s Best Countries for Business, Singapore managed to climb up to eighth place in 2012, one notch up from ninth in 2011.

Bloomberg takes into consideration six factors when ranking the 161 countries, including the cost of setting up business, the cost of labour and material, the cost of moving goods, the degree of economic integration, less tangible costs such as inflation and corruption and the readiness of the local consumer base.

The Business Times reported Singapore earned 74% and performed better in most categories this year, but came in second to Hong Kong in terms of the cost of setting up business.

Hong Kong, with a score of 79.6%, managed to hold on to its top ranking again this year, beating the US (77%), Japan (75.6%), the Netherlands (75.3%) and Germany (74.6%). Both the US and Japan also showed improvement this year, jumping up one and four places, respectively.

Regionally, China scored 68.5%, earning it a spot at number 24, slipping five points from last year, while Malaysia gained four places with 66.7% this year.

The rankings also hinted at a better global outlook as 15 of 30 European countries moving up in the top 50 this year. The average improvement of European countries was 35 spots, with Spain coming in 16^th with 71%, France at 14^th with 71.9% and the UK at 10^th with 73.4%.

Another notable improvement was Greece, which jumped ten spots to 43^rd place with 62.2%.