The United Kingdom has a strong tradition of business enterprise. It was the home of the Industrial Revolution and was known, for almost a hundred years, as 'The Workshop of the World.' The country has continued to lead the world as a place in which to do pursue business opportunities in UK, almost regardless of the sector chosen. The UK has a well-educated workforce and a well-established history of business activity in construction, production, commercial service, and retail and financial services -- an area in which it leads the world. As a member of the European Union, the G7 Group of Nations and the British Commonwealth of Nations, doing business in the UK is set for further successes. Because of these amazing benefits more and more foreigners seek uk citizenship by investment.
Why Pursue Business Opportunities in UK
The World Bank Group's Report on the ease of doing business in 189 countries gives the UK an overall rank of #6, both for 2015 and forecast for 2016. In 2012, the last year for which figures were available for the Group's report, the UK saw 537,658 new business start-ups. There were several reasons for this.
Two major ones were that the government set out to reduce the general regulatory burden in 2005, and that culminated in a 25% reduction by 2010. The government estimates that this saved businesses approximately £3.5 billion (or about US$5.25 billion) in costs.
The UK has also worked to streamline the business start-up process. Much of the paperwork is handled electronically -- something the World Bank Group considers very important since it reduces errors and minimizes opportunities for fraud. Fully registering a new business now takes less than 1 day, and registering for VAT takes 3 days.
Looking a little more broadly at the report, the UK ranks #17 across the 189 world economies for the ease of starting a business and #23 for obtaining construction permits to build new manufacturing plants. On the more commercial and legal side, the UK ranks #4 for protecting minority investments, #33 for enforcing contracts and an impressive #9 for obtaining credit.
In recent years, the government has also introduced Immigrant Investor and Immigrant Entrepreneur Programs to further encourage investment. If you would like to discuss opportunities and to learn more about the process of doing business in the UK, please contact us today.
