MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile most business friendly country in region

Chile ranks as the most business friendly country in Latinamerica particularly regarding protecting investors.

The latest World Bank index on the "ease of doing business" shows Chile in position 36, --one down from the previous--, out of 155 countries with New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and United States top of the list.

However Chile is ahead of all other Latinamerican countries, with Argentina ranking 51, Brazil 53, Uruguay 76 and Mexico 125.

The ranking takes into account several basic indicators when starting a business: ease of doing business; hiring and firing; enforcing contracts; getting credit; closing a business; registering property; investment protection; trading across borders and dealing with licenses.

Other factors include political and economic stability, size of markets, predictable laws for investors, legal framework, and available infrastructure with bureaucracy figuring as one of the main obstacles, underlines the World Bank.

Because of this, in some countries such as Brazil, 152 days are needed and 17 steps to open a new business compared to ten steps and 53 days on average in other developing countries and 7 steps and 28 days in members from the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development.