Fancy starting a business? Pick a country bent on being competitive

IMAGINE that you could open a business anywhere in the world. Where would you choose? Before you decide, consider these facts: The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have not lived up to their potential - the Shanghai stock market alone has lost 30 per cent of its value since June 2015.

Most of the world's 36 advanced economies grew less last year than they did in 2007, with the exception being the United States, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Currently, around 25 per cent of all government bonds outstanding in the world have negative interest rates. And, at the same time, central banks everywhere are manipulating currency markets, which is unsustainable in the long term. So where, then, should wise entrepreneurs set up shop? The answer is in competitive economies.

Whether or not a country is competitive is not determined by short-term growth, countries' own assessment of prosperity or even competition. Rather, it is about the ability to generate sustainable long-term value. From an entrepreneur's point of view, another key factor identified by the IMD World Competitiveness Center (WCC) is that a country that improves its competitiveness will see a subsequent improvement in gross domestic product and stockmarket growth. This indicates that competitiveness is a key economic driver in a way that simple economic growth is not; past economic growth does not automatically lead to future stockmarket returns.