Jamaica leads region in building businesses

It takes a day to register a business in Jamaica, one of the quickest in the world.

But it also takes less permits and procedures to build out that business than the regional average and also in some developed countries, according to the World Bank data from the Doing Business Report.

The island is the top 5 globally to start a business. It takes a day to register the name and two days to file the articles of incorporation. Importantly, the business owner needs to ascertain from the Registrar of Companies whether the desired name is available and acceptable pay J$500. Next the applicant needs to pay a registration fee to incorporate the Companies Registry Office for J$24,000, plus J$500 for stamp duty and an optional J$3,000 for next day processing.

Turning to the build out of a goods business, when pitched against its peers the island requires less permits and procedures to build a warehouse than most. Think that’s a frivolous metric, well the World Bank didn’t think so. They term it an important metric in determining the functionality of a goods business. It takes 142 days to complete a formal warehouse in Jamaica and 155 days in developed nations and 192 in Latin America and Caribbean countries. In Korea it takes 28 days, that’s the fastest pace in the world.

The time takes into account building of a formal J$30 million warehouse and steps and procedures required. It mainly assumes that the business operates in the economy’s largest business city and the entire office space is approximately 929 square meters (10,000 square feet). For 11 economies the data are also collected for the second largest business city. Also presumes owners are locally based and have a start-up capital of 10 times income per capita and has a turnover of at least 100 times income per capita. The business would perform general industrial or commercial activities, such as the production or sale of goods or services to the public. The business does not perform foreign trade activities and does not handle products subject to a special tax regime, for example, liquor or tobacco. It does not use heavily polluting production processes, leases the commercial plant and is not a proprietor of real estate and the amount of the annual lease for the office space is equivalent to 1 times income per capita. Also the company has between 10 to 50 employees and does not qualify for investment incentives or any special benefits.

Overall the island ranks 70^th out of 190 economies in its ease of Doing Business. This ranks it above the regional average. This is definitely good news!

(Source  http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/jamaica#dealing-with-construction-permits )