Canada is one of the best countries among the G20 for small business owners, but there is still plenty of room for improvement, Ernst & Young said in a new business barometer released Monday. The study, prepared for the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Summit in Nice, France, surveyed 1,000 entrepreneurs across the G20 and found Canada is among the leaders in several areas, including business confidence, startup costs, strong banking sector, and good coaching and education programs for young entrepreneurs. Canada was also named the top entrepreneurial hotbed of all the G20 countries by a wide margin in a recent report from McKinsey & Co. prepared for the G20 YE summit.
The Ernst & Young study reported that more than 70% of Canadian entrepreneurs surveyed were confident in their own country, by far the highest figure. Canada also averages almost nine new businesses registered for every 1,000 people in a given year. Part of the reason for this is a well-established culture of entrepreneurship, with 88% of Canadians saying the country’s culture encourages making your own way in life. Canada also leads in startup costs and ease of registry as it only takes one procedure and on average five days to start a business, while the average cost comes in at only 0.4% of per capita income.
“Canada does sound like the startup paradise for G20 counterparts,” the report said, citing BizPal as an important online government service that simplifies the permitting and licensing process for entrepreneurs.
As for funding, 52% of Canadian respondents said they had easy access to funding, compared with only 36% across the G20; however, 38% of Canadians said bank lending funding had deteriorated, and 50% said access to venture capital had worsened. Canada also ranked high in terms of education, with 72% of Canadian respondents seeing an improvement in coaching programs in the past five years, and 50% calling for coaching as the No. 1 priority in the next three years to improve student perception of entrepreneurship.
Source: National Post, 31 October 2011
Filed under: Business, Entrepreneurs, Retail, SSBEC, Start Up Tagged: | business, Canada, entrepreneurs, Ernst and Young, financing, SSBEC, start ups, top country, young entrepreneurs
If Canadians feel that way about startup opportunities then that would lead to the rise in startups only problem would arise is accessing capital from banks or venture capitalists