The big exception is Colombia.
Latin America is the region of the world that has adopted the fewest measures to improve the business environment in the last year, which has prevented it from achieving greater economic growth, the World Bank warned today.
"Almost all (Latin American) countries are falling in the world rankings," said Simeon Djankov, one of the authors of the study "Doing Business in 2008," which the institution publishes every year.
This is the first time that Latin American nations have appeared at the bottom of the list of the rest of the planet.
The big exception is Colombia, which was the sixth largest reformer in the world, as it streamlined foreign trade, improved investor protection and eased the tax burden, according to the World Bank.
Central American countries also improved their rankings, while Brazil and Mexico remained more or less the same. "For the rest, the situation is quite negative," Djankov noted.
The most extreme example is Venezuela, which fell from 144th place in 2005, to 164th in 2006 and to 172nd this year, out of a total of 178 countries.
The report assesses the obstacles that entrepreneurs face in running their businesses.
There are extreme cases. For example, in Argentina, if a company were to pay all the taxes stipulated by law, it would have to hand over 112 percent of its income to the public treasury, according to Sylvia Solf, another of the authors of the document.
And in Brazil, a company needs 2.600 hours of work—that is, more than a year of an employee's effort—to complete the paperwork for paying federal, state, and municipal taxes, which is the worst result in the world, according to Rita Ramalho, another of those responsible for the study.
The star of the region remains Chile, which occupies the 33rd position in the world ranking, led by Singapore, New Zealand and the United States.
However, it has also lost positions, as last year it was in 28th place.
Djankov stated that Latin America's poor performance this year could be attributed to elections in 13 countries. According to the financial institution's analysis, 85 percent of reforms are implemented during the first 15 months of a government's term.
"Next year we should see significant reforms in the region. If not, it will be quite worrying," he added.
Facilitating the process of declaring bankruptcy (in Ecuador it takes 5,3 years) or registering a property (in Bolivia it takes 92 days) may seem like a relatively unproblematic reform, but in reality it faces many vested interests.
First, there is the inertia of the bureaucratic apparatus; second, the aversion of public agencies to losing power; and third, the attraction of receiving bribes to expedite procedures, Ramalho explained.
According to the World Bank study, not only are businesses harmed, but economic growth also suffers.
According to his analysis, the return on capital is higher in countries that simplify their economies the most. Foreign investors are looking for nations undergoing reform processes, such as Vietnam, China, and India, according to Djankov.
"That perception doesn't exist for most of Latin America. It only exists for Colombia, Mexico, and Central American countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras," he added.
However, it is present in Eastern Europe, the region where the most reforms were approved in the last year, encouraged by the prospect of joining the European Union (EU).
In Latin America, a similar effect is observed in countries that have signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the United States, according to the institution.
The difference between the two cases is that Colombia, Peru, and Panama, the countries that have pending free trade agreements with the U.S., do not know when Congress will approve them, while the Eastern European nations do have a date for their entry into the EU, which gives more certainty to investors and reformers, said Bulgarian Djankov.
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