With a total score of 43.98, Uruguay is the most recommended country in Latin America to start an online business after Chile.
For some years now, the North American company Best Accounting Software has been in charge of evaluating accounting programs so that small companies, self-employed workers and NGOs can choose, thanks to their reviews, the most suitable accounting software for their particular situation and type of business.
So it is not surprising that in this year that is beginning, it has turned all that accumulated experience into an index that evaluates which are the best countries in the world to build an online business.
The Best Countries to Set Up an Online Business evaluates 99 countries in 20 variables ranging from GDP per capita and percentage of the population that uses electronic means of payment, to the number of procedures necessary to start a business, the number of countries with the same time zone or degree of postal development.
As the number of variables to be analyzed according to the number of countries and categories is close to 2,000, we are going to limit our analysis to Latin America. We will only add that the best country to open an online business is Denmark, and the worst, Haiti.
With a total score of 43.98, Uruguay is the most recommended country in Latin America to start an online business after Chile. As we have already seen, all the variables related to the Internet service have an impact on this, where the country has stood out in the region for some years now. In addition to the usual download speed, Uruguay is the country with the largest number of subscribers to broadband services (29.25%, 10 points more than Argentina, the second) and gives Chile a fight in terms of the percentage of the population that uses the Internet ( 82% of Chileans against 78% of Uruguayans) and percentage of social network users (79% and 78%, respectively).
Uruguay is the country with the highest number of subscribers to broadband services. Photo: Archive.
Uruguay also has the highest percentage of the population that uses the Internet for online purchases and payment of bills in Latin America, with 31% (followed by Chile with 29%) and an acceptable level of corporate taxes of 25% (the lowest is Paraguay with 10% and the highest Brazil and Venezuela with 34%). In nominal GDP per capita, Uruguay is also ahead with US$16,230 (followed by Chile and Panama) and is third in economic freedom (only surpassed by Colombia and Chile), although regarding the percentage of the population with a bank account, the country is 5th in the region, after Chile, Venezuela, Brazil and Costa Rica. In digital skills it has the same score as Chile (4.26), although both are surpassed in this variable by Costa Ricans (4.89), the most digitally skilled population in Latin America.
The report also exposes variables where Uruguay presents margins to improve. Its score in the Logistics Performance Index is 2.69 and places it in position 10 out of 15, while its postal development, which is measured every year by the Universal Postal Union, is 13.1, only better than that of Venezuela. In the number of shared work spaces (co-working) it is in tenth position with 12, the same number as the Dominican Republic, although it is convenient to point out that Uruguay has 3.5 million inhabitants and the Dominican Republic, 11 (Mexico, the best country Latin American in this indicator, has 348 spaces).
Finally, there are three variables related to the so-called startups, which are companies with a strong technological component that require little initial investment, are founded by one or several entrepreneurs and are usually innovative (as Amazon, Facebook or MercadoLibre were at the time). . The first of these variables is the number of procedures necessary to found a company of these characteristics, which in Uruguay is 5, the best country together with Panama (the worst is Venezuela, which requires 20 procedures). The second refers to the cost that these procedures represent in terms of gross national income per capita. In Uruguay, which occupies the 10th position, they represent 24.1%, while in Panama, which has the same number of procedures to found a startup, it is 5.8%. Finally, the third of these variables refers to the days required to start a business. Uruguay, with 7 days, ranks third in Latin America (in Chile 4 days are required while in Venezuela 230 are necessary).
To speak about digital development in 2021 is to speak, inevitably, of the pandemic, which exposed (and still exposes) the strengths and weaknesses of each country to face the challenge of integrating into a world that is globalizing by force. In this scenario, electronic commerce seems to be, after vaccines, one of the most effective lifesavers in mitigating their negative effects, especially in economic terms. That Uruguay is the second country in Latin America where there are more facilities to set up an online business is, without a doubt, a very positive sign for what is to come.
* Director of Nueva MayorÃa Uruguay
Source: The Country