Singapore amongst the best countries for women entrepreneurs

It is the best place in Asia for women-owned businesses.

Singapore remains to be one of the ideal places for women entrepreneurs to set up shop, as revealed in the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs which ranked the city-state in the top five best countries.

Released during the International Women's Day, the index ranked Singapore as fifth, behind New Zealand, Canada, United States and Sweden. This was driven by Singapore's access to knowledge assets and finances, which gauges women’s progress and the degree of marginalisation they face commercially as financial customers and tertiary education enrollment. Singapore also topped the category with the highest rated conditions for women business ownership and entrepreneurship.

However, even with a strong showing in support infrastructure for entrepreneurship, Singapore demonstrates a comparatively low percentage of women business owners in the segment.

“The prevalent success of women entrepreneurs in Singapore has been greatly fueled by the accessibility to financial, governing and educational infrastructure. With the support of the public and private sector, women entrepreneurs can overcome prevailing social and economic challenges to live out their personal, professional and financial dreams," Mastercard Singapore Country Manager Deborah Heng said.

Here are some regional statistics:

• What spurs female entrepreneurship in developing markets? Grit. Bangladesh (31.6 percent), Vietnam (31.4 percent) and China (30.9 percent) made the list of the top ten markets for proportion of women business owners as a percentage of total business owners. In these economies, women capitalise on business opportunities that do not rely on knowledge or innovation assets alone.
• There are other markets such as the Philippines (68.4, 8th), Peru (64.3, 23rd), Malaysia (63.9, 25th) and China (61.3, 31st) where supporting conditions for entrepreneurs are not as conducive, yet the local entrepreneurship landscape is highly energized and vibrant with very healthy perception of business opportunities and high regard for the status of successful entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs here are often driven by strong desires to succeed.
• The low scores of markets such as India (41.7, 49th) and Saudi Arabia (37.2, 52nd) are indicative of the fact that cultural biases against women severely undermine their ability to rise to positions of leadership and take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities.
• Women’s representation in business leadership is inspiring: Out of every 100 business leaders, nearly half (41.8) are women, bringing them nearly at par with men and ahead of high-income markets such as Australia (37.0 percent), Singapore (34.8 percent), United States (39.3 percent), Canada (35.7 percent), and Italy (27.2 percent).