According to the World Bank, the waiting period to open a company in Brazil has dropped 20% in the last five years. Today, the process takes 119 days; in 2007, it took 152.
The bad news? In a list of 183 countries, Brazil is only worse than Equatorial Guinea (137 days), Venezuela (141), Republic of the Congo (160) and Suriname (694 days)… it almost sounds like a joke!
According to newspaper Folha, Brazil is also considerably worse than the emerging countries known as Brics, which includes India (29 days), Russia (30), China (38) and South Africa (19 days).
Back to the “good news”… the World Bank says Brazil now demands “only” 13 procedures – fewer than the 17 required five years ago – to start a business, such as a registry at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Board of Trade, as well as at the Social Security Office and an authorization by the local government. All requests to each department are made separately in most cities, which slows the process and makes it more expensive.
If the company to start business in Brazil is foreign, the necessary procedures jump to 15, because foreign businessmen must have all necessary documents to be legal in the Brazil and enroll the company at the Siscomex [Foreign Commerce Integrated System] and at the Internal Revenue Service.
How bad does Brazil fare with other countries? Here are a couple of examples…
- Opening a business in China costs seven times less than in Brazil.
- Only one legal procedure is needed to start a company in Canada or New Zealand. Authorization is given after one day in New Zealand and after five in Canada.
Source: Folha
I keep telling people that: DO NOT compare Brazil to Russia, India or China… Countries with 5.000 years or history, nuclear powers, excellent engineers, people learning english, developing technology, exporting finished goods…
Brazil is a poor country, exporting mainly commodities, Brazil has no engineers, technology is terrible, the army and police are two jokes, no one speaks english, Brazil Brazil is a country just for parties, … Brazil is a con and sooner or later people will realize that
Open a business in PORTUGAL takes 1 business day.
I think you are going too far categorizing Brazil as an agricultural exporter only. It is true Russia has a long scientific tradition. It has a common and long history shared with western europe, which has always tried emulate and catch up. In fact, if it would not be for too many tragic detours, this is the group where Russia would belong today.
But we could say that despite its nuclear super-power status, Russia today is riddled with the same kind of problems as other developing countries. Also being driven by commodities, mainly gas and oil. Also with a terrible record on civil rights, a terrible record on politics.
And where is the high technology coming from Russia, or even India and China?
Russian aviation industry, for instance, is one of those areas which had big potential. However, they failed to make the transition to civil aircraft. People abroad never perceived those planes to be safe enough. So ‘Russian tech’ basically means the arms trade, for countries embargoed by US and Europe that cannot get any better.
The privatized Embraer was much more successful in finding a niche, build a better track record. They seem to be doing fine even on the current crisis. There are other examples of well managed companies in Brazil that go against the tide and achieve excellence. But of course I agree the fundamentals are not so strong, the good foundations are not there yet.
The way I see you similar problems everywhere, similar traps everywhere. And have talent everywhere, specially in countries with immigration and diversity, as is the case of Brazil. Surely you have a culture of laid-back work, bureaucracy and inefficiency in Brazil, but not only here.
And finally, if you check on the ‘doing business’ ranking, you will see all these countries in very close positions. The good thing in China is that they have the experience of Taiwan and Hong Kong, that showed them the way to go and inspired some other provinces to make efforts. But that is far from being adopted nationwide.
juliano, facts are facts… in New zeland Portugal takes 1 day to open a business…in canada 5… 120 days says a lot what come next after you open a business…HIGH TAXES, HIGH BUROCRACY…keep your excuses to yourself…making business in brazil its similar to entering a WAR ZONE….now go and turn the globo tv channel on, so you can be brain wash in how rich and exelent country brazil currently is.
hey juliano…who cares about embraer, petrobras and vale… we pay EXTREMELY HIGH PRICES on petrol, tickets to fly anywhere and are now paying real estate prices BUBBLE VERSION…are kidding me men?!! since when big corporations or campanies do any good to the consumer in brazil?!
Of course this is a warzone. The point is, it is also very hard to operate a business in ANY of those countries. Despite what Folha claimed, they are all very close on the ‘Doing Business’ charts. Russia is no different, even scoring higher points for their scientific tradition.
Nuts…
That’s the only thing I can say about Brazilian Bubble.
As a Brazilian engineer, real estate developer and also Italian citizen, I have lived the Brazilian reality for decades. And it is 100% inaccurate that someone has to wait 120 days to start a business. Yes, some procedures can take some time, but in general you don’t have to wait for them to be in business.
It’s a joke to compare Brazil and Portugal. There it’s no way to make in Portugal the money you can make in Brazil. It’s useless to get one day to open a business in a place where you are not able to profit after that…
Fact… Gasoline in Italy is now 1.79 euro and 1.1 in Brazil.