Forbes: 13 countries in Africa better for business than Nigeria

Forbes, an American business magazine, has ranked Nigeria as the 110th best country in the world for business.

The magazine said it compiled the list by rating 161 countries on 15 factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, infrastructure, market size, political risk, quality of life, workforce, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape and investor protection.

The United Kingdom, Sweden, Hong Kong, Netherlands and New Zealand were ranked the top five best countries for business.

In Africa, South Africa was 59th on the list and the best African country for business.

Nigeria was ranked Africa’s 14th best.

Apart from South Africa, Morocco (62), Seychelles (66), Tunisia (82), Botswana (83), Rwanda (90), Kenya (93), Ghana (94), Egypt (95), Namibia (96), Senegal (100), Zambia (103) and Cape Verde (104) were ranked ahead of Nigeria.

“We used the World Bank’s Doing Business report to grade countries’ taxes, investor protection and red tape/bureaucracy,” Forbes said, explaining its methodology.

“The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom provided the basis for our ratings on trade freedom and monetary freedom. Ratings on technology, innovation and infrastructure came compliments of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report.

“We used the Property Rights Alliance’s International Property Rights Index to gauge property rights, which was led by Japan. Workforce was based on the size of the labor force and its growth from data via the World Bank.

“Quality-of-life ratings came courtesy of the United Nations’ Human Development Index.”