Colombia has dropped one place in it’s “Doing Business” ranking out of a total of 183 Countries, now settling behind Chile and Peru, according to the World Bank.
The Doing Business average, compiled by the World Bank organisation, in a simple sense, ranks the worlds top 183 economies by how secure they are for small and medium size businesses. The report judges countries in sectors such as paying taxes, obtaining credit, and trading across borders, among other things.
Overall Colombia has gone from 44 place in 2011 to 45 in 2012, reasons for this include the amount of tax paid which led to a drop from 95 place to 99 in the rankings, and the resolution of insolvencies forced Colombia from 12 to 21 place.
Other casualties occured in sectors such as obtaining credit, where the country moved from 67 to 70, and fulfillment of contracts where the country dropped from 149 to 154. Despite this the country kept up the pace in areas like entrepreneurship, jumping from 65 to 61, which represents an important improvment for small and medium sized companies.
Colombia also saw an improvment in the granting of electricity and building permits, remaining in the top 50, despite negative predictions in the two areas.
The report dedicated a chapter to the country called “Colombia: sustaining reforms over time,” concluding that “while the country has more development hurdles to overcome, the measures taken over the past years have greatly improved its competitiveness.”
The case study also said that the biggest challenge facing the country is reducing income inequality, which would increase the support of the business community and civil society and generate development strategies. Although Colombia has made huge efforts to improve its standing on a global economic level by “implementing 25 institutional and regulatory reforms in the past 8 years,” total reform may yet take some years, according to the study.
The report ranked Colombia at number 8 in the world in terms of exploring new economic frontiers at an increase in 15.3% since 2005, making it the most improved country in South America, followed by Guatemala at 10.4%, Peru at 10.1% and Mexico at 9.4% while Venezuela sits at the bottom with an improvment of -3.7%.