In 2016 Niue officials declared that they paid off their national debt. For the country with population of sixteen hundreds people and which GDP doesn’t exceed $10 million, this may be a short-lived triumph. For the economy, which mostly relies on subsistent agriculture and international aid, debts are crucial for survival. Another two important sources of budget revenues — tourism and proceeds from the registration of the top-level domain name “.nu”, popular in Nordic countries (“nu” means “now” in Swedish) — are not reliable and depend on international markets volatilities.
UN recognized Niue independence in 1994. Today Niue is the parliamentary monarchy where Queen is the head of State and Prime Minister is the head of Government. Prime Minister is elected by 20-members, unicameral Niue Legislative Assembly. Niue is the Area of the Realm of New Zeland and this country plays more important role in lives of Niuean (which all hold New Zealand citizenship) than the UK.
Niue economy and its population are both too small to provide profit opportunities for high-tech entrepreneurs. Additionally, Niuean youth have a tendency to quite their country in a search for better job prospects in New Zealand. Consequently, the number of local users is slowly but certainly shrinking each year.
Business Notes for Startups Founders:
- political climate: indifferent;
- economic climate: not appropriate;
- regions to focus: n/a;
- industries to focus: n/a ;
- major limitations: too small economy, tiny population, geographical isolation;
- stimulus: none;
- opportunities: n/a.