Doing business in Greece gets easier, but still not easy enough
The reforms implemented in recent years with the aim of reducing bureaucracy in Greece appear to be paying off, as the country has improved its ranking in the latest Doing Business chart from 65th to 61st position among 189 countries.
Greece had originally ranked 72nd last year, but the revision of the methodology employed brought it up to 65th. Singapore remains on top.
Greece has climbed 48 spots since the 2010 report, according to the Doing Business 2015 chart, but it still has a long way to go in terms of making entrepreneurship easier as the country ranks near the bottom among European Union member states.
A key role in improving Greece’s position was played by the reduction in bureaucratic requirements and in the cost of starting a business, mainly thanks to the introduction of the One-Stop Shop service, the drop in starting capital requirements and the introduction of private capital companies, known as one-euro companies.
Therefore, based on the criterion of starting a business, Greece has risen to 52nd spot from 57th last year, as the procedures required have dropped to five, close to the average for countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of 4.8 procedures, while the cost has come to 151.10 euros or 2.2 percent of per capita income (below the OECD average of 3.4 percent) and the starting capital is close to zero. In Greece it currently takes 13 days to start a company, against an OECD average of 9.2 days.
The biggest rise for Greece was in the category of registering a real estate property, in which it climbed 54 spots, from 170th to 116th, thanks to the reduction in property transfer costs.
