Top 20 Best Countries for Business Development by 2035

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By Andrii Azarov (Andrew Azarov) — Professor of Business, Economics, and the Applied Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Development of Business Process Automation Software Systems. International Business Academy Consortium (United Kingdom).

Introduction

By 2035, the best country for business development will not necessarily be the country with the lowest tax rate or the fastest incorporation form. It will be the country where business can be built, financed, protected, scaled and lived around.

This means the serious founder must now ask a wider question: not merely where to register a company, but where to create a durable economic life. A truly strong jurisdiction must combine legal predictability, workable taxation, credible institutions, practical infrastructure, decent family living conditions, educational opportunity for children, acceptable healthcare, and enough economic headroom for the entrepreneur not only to survive, but to accumulate capital.

That is why this article does not offer a shallow “top list”. It offers a strategic view of 20 jurisdictions that, for different reasons, may remain among the strongest places in the world for business development by 2035. The world economy is entering a more selective era of capital, more geopolitical fragmentation, more AI-led productivity gaps, and more competition between tax systems, talent systems and quality-of-life systems. Countries that align all three — money, institutions and family life — will win the next decade.

GLOBAL BUSINESS WEEK 2026 will be held in Davos

Every year, leading entrepreneurs from five continents who are interested in developing business connections, studying and supporting innovation, establishing new trade missions, and shaping a global business civilisation gather at GLOBAL BUSINESS WEEK — an international platform for a series of business forums and strategic corporate retreats.

GLOBAL BUSINESS WEEK 2026 is the world’s leading arena for business diplomacy. It is a next-generation format: a trade initiative, an entrepreneurial diplomacy platform, and a continuously operating ecosystem of international business connections, where entrepreneurs gain access not only to knowledge and networking, but also to practical tools for entering the global arena.

Secret of German Economy

The Core of Germany's Economy

Germany is often described through the language of engineering, exports, and industrial discipline. But beneath those familiar labels lies something even more distinctive: a deeply rooted culture of family business. In Germany, family firms are not a niche or a romantic leftover from an earlier era. They are the core of the economy.

Depending on the definition used, family-owned or family-controlled companies account for roughly 86–90 percent of all German businesses. They employ about 54 percent of the national workforce, and under a broader “family-controlled” definition they account for around 58 percent of jobs subject to social-security contributions. In revenue terms, they generate about 43–46 percent of total business turnover.

One important methodological note is that Germany does not have a single universally cited “official” statistic for the exact share of national GDP produced by family businesses alone. German research institutes and family-business foundations more often publish turnover, employment, and ownership figures than a direct GDP share. This unique structure is a key driver in current European market trends.

The Mittelstand refers to the small and medium-sized enterprises that are the backbone of the German economy. Unlike general SMEs, the term implies a specific ethos: a focus on long-term stability, deep commitment to employees, and often a leading position in a highly specialized global niche market.

The Mittelstand and Long-Term Ownership

That distinction matters because the German family-business model is wider than the classic image of a small town workshop. It includes tiny craft businesses, midsize export champions, and some of Europe’s biggest companies. Germany’s economic landscape is full of firms that are not merely “founded by a family” in the distant past, but are still actively shaped by family ownership or carefully managed dynastic succession, which often influences family office investments globally.

The cultural heart of this model is the Mittelstand. It refers to a style of capitalism built around long-term ownership, operational conservatism, and a preference for resilience over short-term maximization. Mittelstand companies often dominate highly specialized global niches—industrial sensors, machine tools, or precision components—without becoming household names abroad.

What makes German family-business culture especially durable is its combination of tradition and institutional discipline. Families often stay influential through foundations, share-pooling agreements, or legal forms such as the KGaA.

The KGaA (Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien) is a hybrid corporate form in Germany that combines elements of a partnership and a joint-stock company. It allows a family to maintain total management control as a general partner even if they sell a majority of the shares to the public, effectively shielding the company from hostile takeovers.

Pillars of German Family Capitalism

Another hallmark is intergenerational stewardship. Successors are expected not just to inherit wealth but to preserve reputation and technical standards. Yet it also creates pressure: succession is now one of the biggest structural issues facing the country. Proper succession planning strategies are becoming vital as more than half of Mittelstand leaders are already 55 or older.

Merck and Henkel: Managing Dynastic Scale

Merck traces its roots to 1668 and has been family-owned for 13 generations. Today the family still holds a 70.274 percent stake. Similarly, Henkel, founded in 1876, remains anchored by family influence. As of 2025, the family share-pooling agreement held 61.85 percent of ordinary shares, showing the German preference for combining family control with managerial professionalization.

Miele and The Otto Group: Adapting to Change

Miele represents the classic ideal of the premium industrial firm, owned by two founding families since 1899. Meanwhile, The Otto Group illustrates how family firms survive technological disruption, successfully moving from mail order to digital commerce while preparing for a third-generation transition in 2026.

The Schwarz Group: Extreme Scale

The Schwarz Group (Lidl and Kaufland) demonstrates extreme scale combined with private control. In fiscal 2024, it reported sales of €175.4 billion. Despite its size, it remains a family-controlled private empire, allowing it to reinvest aggressively in logistics, recycling, and cybersecurity.

Macroeconomic Impact and Future Challenges

From a macroeconomic point of view, the importance of these firms is hard to overstate. Family-owned businesses account for 86 percent of German companies and over half of the workforce. This has shaped the social contract of German capitalism, where firms see themselves as custodians of local employment and craftsmanship.

However, the model faces stress. Younger generations are not always willing to take over, and digital transformation is raising capital needs. If Germany cannot manage this transition, the consequences will be felt across global supply chains. In other words, family business in Germany is not a side story. It is the architecture of the economy itself.

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Startup World Cup Championship 2026: Davos to Host the Next Generation of Global Entrepreneurs

From 9 to 12 July 2026, Davos, Switzerland, will become a meeting point for a new kind of global leadership: young founders, visionary educators, business angels, investors, diplomats, trade representatives, policymakers, and innovation leaders. The 26th Startup World Cup Championship 2026 will gather some of the world’s most forward-looking entrepreneurial and intellectual communities to evaluate youth-led startups and select the best projects of the year as World Champions 2026.

The Championship is part of a broader international movement dedicated to practical entrepreneurship education, innovation, and business diplomacy. According to the official Davos event listing, the Startup World Cup Championship brings together young and mature entrepreneurs, inventors, investors, entrepreneurs, and government representatives from more than 35 countries, with projects assessed by an international jury across innovation, feasibility, scalability, and business potential. (davos.ch)

The 2026 competition will involve 35 educational partners from different countries, stretching across continents — from the United Kingdom to Australia, from the United States to Azerbaijan, from Ukraine to Taiwan, from Lithuania to Turkmenistan, from Switzerland to Kazakhstan, from South Africa to Germany, from the UAE to Iraq, and from the Philippines to Thailand. This geography reflects the Championship’s central idea: startup culture is no longer limited to Silicon Valley or major financial capitals. It is becoming a global educational language.

A New Era of Young Entrepreneurs

What makes this Championship truly unique is the age of its youngest founders. The youngest entrepreneurs and participants are students aged 6 to 17 from the world-renowned network of business schools for young entrepreneurs — MiniBoss Business School. Guests and delegates will have the opportunity to meet these young startup founders in Davos and see how early entrepreneurial thinking can be transformed into real projects, teams, pitches, and business models.

In the youth startup league for participants aged 18+, leading teams come from BigBoss Business School and Einstein Science School, where students develop business, science, innovation, and leadership skills through practical startup creation. The Startup World Cup Championship officially presents two age leagues: the MiniBoss Junior League for children and teenagers aged 6–17 and the BigBoss Senior League for youth aged 18+. (startupworldcup.biz)

An Elite Jury of Global Leaders

The startups will be judged by a panel of highly respected entrepreneurs and policymakers, including: Andrew Azarov (UK), Larisa Miller (USA), Evan Yang (Republic of China), Christina Batruch (Switzerland), Vladyslav Rashkovan (USA), Abdullah Alsharif (Saudi Arabia), Arvils Pekuless (Lithuania), Arda Batu (Turkey), Batyr Ravshanov (Turkmenistan), Olga Azarova (UK), Liudmyla Stanislavenko (Ukraine), Durga Das (USA-India), Igor Tkachuk (Ukraine), Oksana Zoppini (France), Aminath Ali (Maldives), Cherry Chang (Republic of China), Wendy Silinyana (South Africa), Elena Lee (Kazakhstan), Elena Chirich (Australia), Lyazzat Alshinova (Kazakhstan), Narmina Hasanova (Azerbaijan), Watceilia Varso (Australia), Jamilya Kerimova (Turkmenistan), Elena Vykhrystyuk (Ukraine), Dinora Saitova (Kazakhstan), Tatiana Markova (Ukraine), Viktoriya Trotska (USA), Olga Nemchenko (Switzerland), Nazzara Ergasheva (Kyrgyzstan), Irina Khazhalia (Georgia), Svitlana Yashchenok (Austria) many other distinguished experts, entrepreneurs, educators and representatives of business communities.

The Revolution in Global Education

The world has seen a significant shift in startup culture, yet dedicated startup education for children only emerged in 2000. This was made possible through the pioneering efforts of entrepreneurs and scientists Dr. Olga Azarova and Andrew Azarov. Their creation of the MINIBOSS and BIGBOSS Business Schools, along with dozens of other educational franchises, ignited a revolution in the market.

This innovation has made the global education market adaptive and rapidly evolving. It focuses on the practical application of knowledge, where every seed of learning is transformed into a viable startup and showcased on the world stage at the Startup World Cup Championship. Today, private schools and universities with the vision and investment potential are increasingly joining this initiative to modernize education.

The rise of the Startup World Cup Championship reflects a much wider global transformation. Startup ecosystems are now a core part of economic development strategy, education policy, and international competitiveness. Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2025 describes its analysis as covering more than 5 million companies across 350+ startup ecosystems, while StartupBlink’s 2025 index tracks more than 1,500 startup ecosystems worldwide. (startupgenome.com)

At the same time, employers around the world continue to warn that traditional education systems are not adapting quickly enough to the realities of the modern economy. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030, based on input from more than 1,000 global employers representing over 14 million workers. (WEF)

This is why the Championship’s symbolic location matters. Davos has long been associated with global dialogue on the future of the economy, technology, leadership, and skills. In 2019, discussions around workforce readiness, skills gaps, and the need to rethink education became especially visible in Davos and across World Economic Forum conversations. Today, the Startup World Cup Championship and its affiliated ecosystem of practical business schools offer a direct response to that challenge: instead of preparing students only for exams, they prepare them to create value, build teams, solve problems, present ideas, attract attention, and launch startups.

The roots of this educational movement go back to 2000, when child and youth startup education began to take shape through the efforts of the entrepreneurial and academic family of Dr. Olga Azarova and Andrew Azarov. This innovation changed the logic of learning. Education became more adaptive, practical, and fast-developing. Knowledge was no longer treated as abstract information to be memorized; it became a seed that could grow into a startup, a social initiative, a commercial project, or a technological solution. Every lesson could become a prototype. Every idea could become a pitch. Every student could become a founder.

Today, this approach is attracting private educational institutions, schools, universities, investors, and entrepreneurial families that want education to become modern, applied, and future-oriented. The Startup World Cup Championship is the world stage where this new educational philosophy becomes visible: young people do not simply talk about the future — they build it, present it, defend it, and compete for it.

In July 2026, Davos will not only host a competition. It will host a statement about the future of education, entrepreneurship, and human potential. The Startup World Cup Championship 2026 will show that the next generation of world entrepreneurs may be younger than anyone expected — and more prepared than the old system ever imagined.

Hosting the 2026 Championship in Davos is deeply symbolic. In 2019, Davos served as the backdrop for a major global consensus: employers expressed profound dissatisfaction with the quality of the workforce. They cited a total mismatch between the traditional education system and the realities of the modern global economy and technological landscape.

The Startup World Cup Championship and its affiliated ecosystem of business schools directly address this "skills gap." By fostering practical skills and an entrepreneurial mindset from a young age, this movement is providing the solution the global community has been searching for, proving that the future of education is practical, innovative, and global.

Join the Startup Movement: https://startupworldcup.biz/
Connect to Join SWCC 2026: +44-744-218-77-04

Women's Diplomacy: World Woman Forum will be held in Davos, 9-12 July 2026

WORLD WOMAN FORUM 2026 will take place in the unique environment of the Davos Congress Centre in Switzerland, a venue globally recognised as the home of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and one of the world’s symbolic spaces for international dialogue, strategic thinking and the future of business and society, according to the Davos Congress Centre.

The Forum is designed as an international platform dedicated to women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation, education, family business, social impact and global cooperation. It will bring together women leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, executives, educators, public figures and changemakers from different countries to exchange ideas, build partnerships and strengthen the role of women in the global economy.

The deeper purpose of the Forum is even more important: women are not only invited to attend, but are given a voice, a stage and the opportunity to shape the global agenda.

The Forum will be opened by Dr Christina Batruch, daughter of Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, co-founder and first Director of the World Economic Forum. This year marks the 100th anniversary of his birth, making the opening of the Forum especially symbolic and historically meaningful.

UAE Leaves OPEC: Scenario № 1 or 2?

The announced withdrawal of the United Arab Emirates from OPEC and OPEC+ is more than a technical change in an oil producers’ club. It is a geopolitical signal, a market shock, and a challenge to the old architecture of energy coordination, profoundly impacting the global economy. According to Reuters, the UAE announced on 28 April 2026 that it would leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective 1 May 2026, marking a major shift for one of the group’s most important Gulf producers. (Reuters)

For decades, OPEC’s power was built not only on barrels, but on the image of unity. The organisation has always had internal disagreements: between price hawks and volume maximisers, between Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers, between sanctioned and non-sanctioned states, and between political rivals inside the same cartel. Yet OPEC’s public message was usually the same: discipline, coordination and market stability. The UAE’s exit breaks that image.