Berlin is significantly outpacing its European rivals when it comes to the rate of growth in active businesses, according to Creditsafe.
Berlin has witnessed a 22% increase in the number of active businesses in the last 18 months, significantly ahead of Paris (14%) and London (9%). While many capital cities are witnessing rapid upsurge in new enterprises, Brussels is struggling for economic growth having witnessed a 0.7% contraction in the number of active companies in the period.
However, when it comes to the number of businesses being created, London leads the way on 63,030. That's significantly more than Berlin on 10,610, Paris on 8,695 and Brussels (-37).
London also came out on top of the mini-league on the rate of failure among businesses. London had a business failure rate of just 0.39% compared to Berlin’s 0.75% failure rate. Both capitals compare extremely favourably to Paris where business failures reached 2.95% and Brussels at 3.15%. There were 37 fewer active companies operating in Brussels at the end of the first half of 2015 than at the start of 2014.
Rachel Mainwaring Operations Director of Creditsafe said: “The analysis points to huge variance in economic recovery and growth across Europe. While London, Berlin and Paris are all successfully incubating new businesses Brussels is going in reverse. However, even in rapidly expanding cities thousands of businesses are still failing each year. It is therefore imperative to check out potential suppliers and partners with a detailed credit report.”
