Colombia has been doing reforms to improve its’ competitiveness and create better investment conditions. This year, the World Bank gave full recognition to the country through the Doing Business research, an analysis of how easy is conducting business among 189 countries and Colombia was ranked in the best position in the region.

On the global level, the country is number 34, meaning it has moved forward 19 positions when compared to last’s year research, when it was ranked number 53.

It is the first time Colombia is the winner in Latin America, above Peru, a country that also had an excellent performance earning number 35, and above Chile, a role model economy of the region, which went from position 39 last year to position 41 on 2014.

The report took into account that Colombia has implemented the largest amount of regulatory reforms in the region since 2005, adding up to 29 initiatives.

Out of the 10 variables evaluated in the study, access to credit was fundamental, as the advance was from position 55 to position 2.

Another major reform was the simplification of property records. There has been 4 years of constant work on this aspect in order to improve the situation.

There are also aspects to improve, such as the process of setting up companies, where there is work to do. There is a need to integrate labour procedures of companies’ registration with commercial and tax registrations, that way all the information is linked together, and the best world practices are followed. Something similar happens with construction and foreign commerce permits, areas where, despite the time and costs reductions, there still are improvement opportunities considering that the competition is against other economies.

Another aspect is contracts’ compliance, as the study analyses how easy is to comply with a contract in the judicial system. In other words, the businessman should not face obstacles and the procedures to comply should be simple.