European Chamber Names Georgia among Best EU States for Business

European Chamber (EuCham) has included Georgia in its report ‘Best European Countries for Business 2018.’

In the report, Georgia is ranked 18th among 46 European countries with a score of 69. Last year, Georgia was in the 20th position, which means that it has improved its position by 2 points this year.

With this new position, Georgia has scores better than its neighboring countries. Turkey has 55 points and takes 38th place, Armenia came 39th with 54 points, Russia takes 42nd place with 52 points and Azerbaijan gained 51 points and was ranked 45th.

Nordic countries, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the UK rank at the top of the European countries that are the best to do business in.

The European Chamber ranks European countries based on their business environment. The EuCham score used for the ranking originates from the average of the World Bank’s Distance To Frontier score (DTF) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

An economy’s score is reflected on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the lowest performance and 100 represents the best.

The DTF score from the World Bank (from Doing Business report) measures the distance of each country’s economy to the frontier, mirroring the best performance on each indicator across all economies (e.g. starting a business, paying taxes, trading across borders, property registration).

The difference is shown on a scale from 0 (lowest performance) to 100 (frontier) a score of 70 means that the economy is 30 points away from the frontier.

The CPI from Transparency International was used to determine how corrupt each country’s public sector is seen to be on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). A low score can be a sign of widespread bribery, lack of punishment for corruption, or a government not responding to social needs.

The EuCham score used for the ranking is the weighted average of the CPI and the DTF scores (50% weight each). A high score indicates the country is favorable to do business in, while low scores refer to least favorable countries for business.

The EuCham score measures the overall business context constituted by corporate environment, legislation, government policies, social climate and conditions which enable or prevent private sector activities from starting, operating and expanding, both in the short and long term.

The European Chamber is an independent, non-governmental, privately-organized institution representing the interests of national and international companies doing business in Europe, improving the business environment they are active in.

By Thea Morrison