Starting up, breaking down

More than half of the city’s start-ups have not yet broken even, according to the latest report of the Entrepreneurship Environment Index released by the SMEs Service Platform. During the fourth quarter of 2016, only 40.8 per cent of 201 interviewees claimed that they had achieved breakeven for their businesses whilst some 55.7 per cent said they had not yet reached this milestone. In addition, 15.4 per cent of respondents said they had withdrawn from the ownership and management of their businesses, a decrease of 3.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter.