Much of GlobeScan’s recent global public opinion tracking points to the surge of economic confidence and optimism in Asia, even in the wake of global recession. Last year’s Consumer Sentiment Index revealed that Asian consumers were among the most upbeat, and results from our most recent 24-nation survey for BBC World Service on entrepreneurship ranks several Asian countries among the world’s most entrepreneur-friendly.
We asked people to say how hard they felt it was for people like them to start a business in their country, whether their country values creativity and innovation, whether it values entrepreneurs and whether people with good ideas can usually put them into practice. Indonesia and India emerged as among the top five countries in terms of their climate for entrepreneurs, joined by the USA, Canada and Australia. Colombia, Egypt, Turkey, Italy and Russia were the least entrepreneur-friendly. The biggest Asian giant of all, China, ranked alongside the USA as the country where innovation and creativity was felt to be most valued.
But many barriers to entrepreneurship remain—in 23 out of 24 countries, majorities said that they felt it was hard for people like them to start a business. It seems likely that if the feeble global economic recovery is to be maintained, some of those barriers will need to be removed.
Finding from the GlobeScan Radar, Wave 2, 2010
This post was written by former GlobeScan Research Director, Sam Mountford.
