Zurich Insurance Group a Swiss insurance company, commonly known as Zurich, Switzerland's largest insurer, has published rankings of the riskiest places in the world to do business, which includes 43 emerging markets.
Zurich Insurance, founded in 1872, has a special research department for business risks. The company has 55,000 employees, and serves private clients and small businesses in more than 170 countries.
According to the rankings, Venezuela is the most dangerous country for business, and Taiwan is the safest emerging market for business.
The insurance group categorized Israel as an emerging market and ranked it 32. The rankings are based on 35 criteria that address financial, economic, and political risks.
In the financial category, the criteria include credit risks and interest, the banking sector, and currency exchange. Economic risks include macro-economic criteria, quarterly and budgetary risks, trade balance and exposure to foreign creditors.
Political criteria include, among other things, corruption measures, political violence, expropriation of property, regulation, and legal system strength.
The emerging countries in order of most to least dangerous, are: Venezuela, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Argentina, Ukraine, Ecuador, India, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Russia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, Morocco, Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Croatia, Mexico, Thailand, Peru, Romania, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Uruguay, Israel, Slovakia, Malaysia, Slovenia, Latvia, South Korea, Czech Republic, Lithuania.
