Franchising was particularly important for expansion into smaller countries such as the Dominican Republic, Grenada Bermuda and Suriname, which could support only a single restaurants. Costs were prohibitively high for KFC to operate company-owned restaurants in there smaller markets. Of the 5,117 KFC restaurants located outside of the United States in 1997, 68 percent were franchised, while 22 percent were company-owned, and 10 percent were licensed restaurants of joint ventures.