NZ Ranked Highest in Entrepreneurial Firms

New Zealand Ranked Highest in Entrepreneurial Firms

LONDON -- New Zealand today discovered how entrepreneurial it is compared 41 other countries in 2003.

Preliminary results of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) New Zealand study were released today at London Business School as part of the release of the GEM Global report. The entire New Zealand report will be released in Auckland in February (see below).

At 13.9% of the adult population counted as entrepreneurs, New Zealand’s "Total Entrepreneurial Activity" (TEA) for the third year in a row is ranked highest amongst developed countries. "New Zealand is emerging as one of the world’s most entrepreneurial countries," said GEM’s Principal Investigator Paul Reynolds.

This year GEM for the first time introduces a measure of firm-level entrepreneurship called the "Firm Entrepreneurial Activity" (FEA) to measure whether existing businesses are considered entrepreneurial. This is defined as businesses providing new innovations and creating jobs, not just duplicating existing goods and services and creating no jobs.

In New Zealand, 16.82% of existing firms are entrepreneurial firms, again the highest amongst developed countries. These entrepreneurial firms created 130,707 new jobs in New Zealand in 2003, according to GEM.

Why is New Zealand so highly ranked? "New Zealand’s performance is due to our extraordinary efforts to create new businesses as well as the high level of innovation and growth among our existing businesses", says Dr. Howard Frederick, UNITEC’s Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Principal Investigator of GEM New Zealand.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is the most comprehensive country-by-country comparison of entrepreneurship in the world. It is conducted annually in New Zealand by Auckland-based UNITEC’s New Zealand Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

The New Zealand report receives no funding from public or private sources.

The GEM New Zealand 2003 report will be released at the end of February.

This year’s New Zealand GEM report contains a Foreword by Rt. Hon. Jenny Shipley.

GEM New Zealand 2003 includes detailed analyses on the rate of female entrepreneurship; the unique dilemmas of home-based and necessity entrepreneurs; the impact of ethnicity on entrepreneurship; religion and entrepreneurship; family entrepreneurship; communication behaviour of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and economic growth; entrepreneurship policy; and informal investing.

It concludes with a special essay by UNITEC’s CEO, Dr. John Webster, on "The Entrepreneurial University" and an Afterword by New Zealand entrepreneur John Blackham.

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