#5 Ireland

Procedures necessary to start a business - 4

Days required to start business – 13

Ireland rewards its most successful businesses by giving them special access to financing. Start-ups incorporated in the past five years, which have had at least 20% growth in three-consecutive years, had a 69% success rate in getting loans and a 100% success rate in receiving financing from existing stockholders.

The economy of the Republic of Ireland is a modern knowledge economy, focusing on services and high-tech industries and dependent on trade, industry and investment. In terms of GDP per capita, Ireland is ranked as one of the wealthiest countries in the OECD and the EU-27 at 5th in the OECD-28 rankings as of 2008.

A 2005 study by The Economist found Ireland to have the best quality of life in the world. The 1995 to 2007 period of very high economic growth, with a record of posting the highest growth rates in Europe, led many to call the country the Celtic Tiger.

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