The World Bank’s annual “Doing Business” report found that starting a business is easier in Colombia’s smaller cities than in its larger ones, reports website Dinero.com.
Cities such as Manizales, Ibague and Pereira headed the list of locations in which it is easiest to open a business, based on measures of the processes needed to set up a company, buy and register property, and pay taxes, and of cross-border trading opportunities and fulfillment of contracts.
Larger cities such as Villevicencio, Cali and Cartagena occupy the bottom of the list.
“The government has been tightening its policies. We are highlighting the good efforts of Neiva which was previously situated at the bottom of the list and now finds itself in the middle. Neiva has organized a committee charged with supervising the process [of opening a business],” said the vice president of the advisory services for the International Finance Corporation, Rachel Kyte.
Colombia’s Director of National Planning, Esteban Piedrahita, invited the authorities of other towns to emulate the processes that had led to a competitive business climate the cities at the top of the “Doing Business” table.
He said, “We want the most deprived cities to take the advice of the more successful ones.”
Unlike the first version, which surveyed thirteen cities, the report presented on Tuesday included 21 cities, with Bogota ranked 12th, Medellín 16th, Barranquilla 17th, and Cali 20th. Bucaramanga, which in 2008 was ranked third, fell to 18th.