The UK\u2019s 2019 Ease of Doing Business score of 82.65 currently is higher than the average of the OECD high income economies, which is 77.80. The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index ranks the United Kingdom 8 out of 140 countries, and in December 2018 Forbes Magazine nominated the UK as the best country in the world for business out of 161 countries.<\/p>
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Through our modern Industrial Strategy, we are focused on maintaining and improving our first-class business environment. We are cutting corporation tax and reforming Business Rates to link them to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and exempt 655,000 firms all together. We have introduced the new Streamlined Company Registration Service, to ease administrative burdens on new businesses and are exempting small and micro-businesses from regulation where possible and desirable.<\/p>
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More widely, we are providing over £5.5 billion of finance to almost 78,000 smaller UK businesses through programmes operated by the Government-owned British Business Bank. We have created the Small Business Commissioner (SBC) with powers to tackle unfair payment practices; in the first year SBC has returned £2.1million to SMEs in payment disputes.<\/p>
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