Oct. 12, 2010- With the global economy facing the financial crisis, new business registration dropped sharply in richer countries, but remained unchanged in many lower-income countries, according to a new World Bank survey.

The survey, called ‘2010 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Snapshots,’ shows that, for example, New Zealand had almost 47,900 new firms registered in 2009 - a 35 percent drop from 74,247 in 2007. Bulgaria and Lithuania also saw drastic declines. But registrations in many low-income countries held up, mainly because those countries tend to have a lower rate of new business creation to begin with, and economic shocks there tend to bring smaller changes.