Warsaw tops global ranking for business
When it comes to the costs of running a business, Warsaw is among the top cities in the OECD countries and first in terms of business broadband.
As business becomes increasingly global, many international companies are trying to optimise costs by moving at least some of their operations abroad. When choosing a location, costs are not the only factor – ones such as travel connections and the availability of qualified local staff come into play too – but they add up, so keeping them low helps.
The ranking puts the capital third out of 70 OECD countries for business costs.
This makes Warsaw an attractive location for running a business, according to a global ranking by British website Utility Bidder, which helps companies decrease the cost of utilities, such as electricity, water and telecoms supplies.
The ranking was created by taking a list of key cities in OECD countries, 70 of them in total. Each of them received a normalised score out of 100 in five categories: average salary, annual office rent, the cost of electricity, the annual Internet cost and the corporate Tax Rate. The overall score is the average of the scores in these five categories.
In the ranking, the Polish capital came third overall, with a score of 82.20 points out of 100. Prague was just ahead with 83.91 and Budapest ranked first with 90.72.
Warsaw came first in the Internet cost category – companies there can expect to spend just £11.52 per month on it.
San Francisco, New York and Tokyo were at the bottom of the list, which means that the costs of running a business were highest there.
Warsaw came first in the Internet cost category – companies there can expect to spend just £11.52 per month on it.
This is much less than in many other cities on the list. Only other countries in Central Europe – Budapest, Brastislava and Prague – came close to Warsaw in this category.
In total, Warsaw scored 82.20 points out of 100.
In most of the cities in the United States included in the ranking, this cost came to over £50 per month.
The Polish capital also did very well in the average salary category, ranking third.
At £19,400, it is roughly half that in Berlin, Brussels and Paris, among other cities in western Europe, and less than a quarter of the average salary in Geneva and Zurich.
