Japan beats Oz on debtor days

Imagine running a small business in Japan! You would be paid on average within 16 days for your products or services. If you are doing business in South Korea, you would be paid in 20 days! Or Taiwan? Maybe 21 days.

But in Australia you can expect to be paid on average at 53 days, down slightly from 55 days a year ago but higher than 48 days in 2004, shows Dun & Bradstreet.

Businesses are doing even better in the September quarter with the average payment period being 51.6 days. But big business and public companies are still the worst offenders, averaging 56 and 55 days respectively.

The Electricity, Gas and Sanitary services are the slowest payers (55.4 days) while agriculture were the quickest (47 days).

And guess who are the best payers? Small and medium businesses. Companies with six to 19 employees are the best payers at 49.5 days, ahead of those with 20-49 employees at 49.9 days.

But in the Asia Pacific region Australia comes a miserable second last, ranking only behind India in terms of worst payers.