15 Best Cities in the World for Entrepreneurs

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Related: 10 Most Expensive Big Cities in the World: 2021

Recent technological advances and fallout from the global pandemic have made working remotely the new normal. Many entrepreneurs are now looking for the perfect location to pursue their next business venture.

According to new research from Compare My Jet, a provider of information about private jet charter and hire options, those entrepreneurs have a good number of options to choose from.

“With the current popularity of remote working, many entrepreneurs decide to take their business activities to the most attractive locations,” Compare My Jet’s founder and chief executive, Ian Wright, said in a statement.

“It is vital for business owners to consider the benefits and drawbacks of a place to live and work and avoid locations with high corruption rate and high risk for international business.”

To arrive at the ranking of the world’s most entrepreneur-friendly cities, researchers collected data for 20 global business hubs across these metrics:

• GFCI 30 rank (Global Financial Centers Index).
• Annual GDP growth.
• Corruption score.
• Corruption rank by country.
• New business density.
• Country risk for international business.
• Index of Economic Freedom (compiled by the Heritage Foundation using criteria like government size, regulation and open markets).
• Unemployment rate.

They awarded each metric a weighted score and combined these to give each destination a final index score out of 10, then ranked each destination based on these scores to determine which were the most entrepreneur friendly.

It is important to note that the research was done by country, not by individual cities. As a result, cities within a country will have the same scores, except in the GFCI 30.

The research found that Hong Kong is the only location to have a sensitive risk level for international business, meaning that the Chinese special administrative region is the city least supportive of entrepreneurial pursuits.

Shenzhen and Beijing ranked slightly higher. China is a medium-risk country for international business, and has an index of economic freedom score of 58, the lowest of all the countries in the study.

See the gallery for the 15 cities around the world that are most welcoming for entrepreneurs.

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