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Canada No. 1 for business
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Canada is the world’s best place to do business, knocking Denmark off the top spot, Forbes magazine says in its annual ranking of global economies.
Improvements to the country’s tax system, a lack of red tape, strong investor protection and sound banks all helped push Canada to the top spot from its 4th place ranking last year, Forbes said.
Canada now ranks 9th in Forbes’ comparison of tax systems, up from 23rd last year. The business magazine, famous for its annual rich list of the world’s wealthiest people, cited cuts to employee and corporate tax rates as well as the Harmonized Sales Tax in Ontario and British Columbia. B.C. has since voted to drop the HST.
“While the U.S. is paralyzed by fears of a double-dip recession and Europe struggles with sovereign debt issues, Canada’s economy has held up better than most,” the magazine wrote. “The $1.6 trillion economy is the ninth biggest in the world and grew 3.1% last year. It is expected to expand 2.4% in 2011, according to the Royal Bank of Canada.”
Forbes looks at 11 different factors in 134 countries to draw up its best countries for business list. Canada knocked Denmark off the top spot. The Scandinavian country dropped back to fifth place due to a relative lack of monetary freedom and a huge plunge in its stock market last year.
New Zealand came in second, with Hong Kong taking the No 3 spot. Despite being caught up in the European debt crisis, Ireland took the fourth place ranking.
The U.S. slipped to 10th place from 9th in 2010, mainly because of its heavy tax burden. The U.S. overtook Japan to have the highest corporate tax rate amongst developed countries, Forbes said.
Burundi, Zimbabwe and Chad came out as the three worst places to do business.
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