The average time for the region is 28 days and the average cost is 48% of GDP per capita, a far cry from OECD average time and costs which are 9 days and 3.4% of GDP per capita.
Using data from the Regional Economic Report 2015, an article on Prensa.com outlines that "... Of all the countries in Central America Panama is the place where starting a business requires the least paperwork, time and cost.
The feeling of owning your company can not be understood "until you finally experience it: an exquisite satisfaction, seasoned with spicy uncertainty, dressed in the joy of vertigo."
A young businesswoman puts on paper her journey of running her own company, with the conviction of one who knows she has found her way in life.
'...I start the day unexpectedly with a tingling in my hands or an unanswered question.
The 12 steps and 60 days that it took to start a business a year ago, have now been reduced to 9 steps that can be done within 24 days.
Nacion.com reports: "This improvement in opening a business is part of the actions undertaken by the Government to facilitate procedures and which has earned the country a jump of seven places in the ranks of the Doing Business 2014 report ...".
Employers point to the thick web of paperwork that must be traversed in Costa Rica if you want to start a new business.
From a press release issued by the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations in the Private Business Sector (UCCAEP):
Most entrepreneurs, according to the latest data from the Survey "Business Pulse" by the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of Private Business Sector (UCCAEP) indicate that in Costa Rica there are a number of constraints to the initiation of a new business in the country.
Latin America is barely ahead of Africa in quality standards and conditions affecting local businesses.
As a region, Central America, is located in the second half of the list entitled ‘Doing Business 2012’.
Doing Business 2012, a report by the World Bank this year added a new area of analysis, which is the ease of obtaining an electrical connection, along with the traditional items which include: ease of starting a business, management of construction permits, registering property , getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, cross border trade, enforcing contracts, and insolvency resolution.
From 2012 the government will be offering a Digital Home Business System, which will reduce the time it takes to start a business to 20 days.
Currently it takes up to 60 days to complete the various formalities required for starting a business, which places the country among the slowest in the region, according to a global Doing Business report.
The new system will be launched sometime in early 2012, and will enable online transactions using a single form and by making a single payment.
Chile offers $ 40 thousand to entrepreneurs to live six months in Chile, raising capital, hiring people, creating and doing business.
The Chilean government announced the 2011 version of the Start-Up Chile program, which in 2010 created 25 groups of entrepreneurs, generating specific results already constituting companies with international impact.
Start-Up Chile is a program by the Government of Chile in order to attract world class entrepreneurs to start their business in Chile.
Position in 2010 Rankings: Panama 72 (62 in 2009), El Salvador 86 (80), Guatemala 101 (100), Nicaragua 117 (119), Costa Rica 125 (121), Honduras 131 (128).
With the exception of Nicaragua, which rose two places, the Doing Business 2011 ranking shows that easiness of doing business in the Central American countries has deteriorated, at least in relation to other countries.
True entrepreneurs are like the pirates of the seventeenth century, for whom the possibility of making a fortune was the excuse for adventure.
The risks of the sea pirates were very high. The chances of drowning, hanging or pierced by a sword, were much higher than those of becoming rich. There is no doubt that living with 100 other pirates in a small boat should not be very comfortable, even for the captain.
Should you join the millions of people every year who take the plunge and start their first ventures?
Daniel Isenberg, in an article in Harvard Business Review, tells us: “I've learned in my own years as an entrepreneur — and now an entrepreneurship professor — that there is a gut level ‘fit’ for people who are potential entrepreneurs”.
So he developed a 20 yes-or-no question test to conclude if you have the traits of a born entrepreneur.
The country inaugurated a new system for incorporating companies, which reduces the time needed to register a company from 39 days to 2.
A pilot plan of this system started operating in the Municipality of Curridabat, but has now been extended to several municipalities: Santo Domingo, Escazú, Coronado, Alajuela, Heredia, Desamparados, Alfaro Ruiz, Grecia, Naranjo, Poás, Valverde Vega, Palmares and Goicoechea.
Here's what happens in bad times — disruption. Disruption means things change. When things change, there are opportunities. And entrepreneurs seize opportunities — that's what makes them entrepreneurs.
When times are bad for the economy, it can be a great time to start a business. In fact, 16 of the 30 companies that make up the Dow industrial average were started during a recession or depression.
If you are thinking of starting a business in Latin America, arm yourself with patience.
It takes 20 times longer to open a company in many countries in the region than in the United States, Singapore or New Zealand.
According to a new report by the World Bank's International Finance Corp., several Latin American countries continue to be among the world champions of bureaucracy, while Eastern European, Asian and African countries are moving much faster to reduce government red tape, making it easier for its people to start new businesses.
If you are thinking of starting a business in Latin America, arm yourself with patience.
It takes 20 times longer to open a company in many countries in the region than in the United States, Singapore or New Zealand.
According to a new report by the World Bank's International Finance Corp., several Latin American countries continue to be among the world champions of bureaucracy, while Eastern European, Asian and African countries are moving much faster to reduce government red tape, making it easier for its people to start new businesses.