Latin America, more communist than China?

This is a news item that should be sending alarm bells throughout Latin America: a new World Bank report says that Communist-ruled China is much more capitalist-friendly than Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and several other countries in the region.

At a time when Latin America’s economy has stopped growing and the region badly needs to attract investments, the massive World Bank report entitled “Doing Business 2016” shows that most South American governments place more obstacles to starting, operating or closing a business than China, or fellow communist-ruled Vietnam.

The report measures 189 countries according to the ease of doing business in each of them, from best to worse. It ranks China in 84th place and Vietnam in 90th place, while Brazil ranks 116, Argentina 121, Nicaragua 125, Bolivia 157, and Venezuela 186.

Some of the report’s examples are chilling. When it comes to the legal steps necessary to open a new business, for instance, it takes one single legal procedure to start a business in Hong Kong or New Zealand, three in Finland and six in the United States, while it takes 11 legal procedures in mainland China, 14 in Argentina, 15 in Bolivia and 17 in Venezuela.

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