The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has said this week that the UK is a "good place" to start up a business.

A spokesperson for the firm said that the lack of "red tape" and long winded legal processes, which can be found in other countries, makes the set-up process here relatively easy.

Simon Briault of the FSB said: "One of the benefits of the UK is that it's actually quite easy to set up a business. There aren't the legal hoops to jump that you have to jump through in other European countries."

He cited France, where to set up a business owners must first become a member of the professional organisation that regulates them, as an example.

"In the UK, setting up a business is mercifully quite an easy thing to do. The problem comes when you try to expand – that's when you start to get involved with complicated employment laws and health and safety and all that," he added.

At the end of 2007 the Financial Times published the results of its survey of small business in the UK, which found that 57 per cent saw the UK as a good place to set up new companies.

Furthermore, 40 per cent claimed that the climate to start a business in the UK was as good as that in the US, seen widely as a "golden standard" by which other countries should be measured.

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