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Country Snapshot - Colombia  

HighlightsRankingsQuantitative DataLegislationAnalytical WorkProject Portfolio
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Upper middle income
  • 46,300,196 (2011)
  • 5,510
Colombia Flag
Below are select highlights for the data included in the profile.

  1. Colombia’s overall Doing Business ranking remained almost unchanged this year. In 2011, positive reforms were recorded in the Dealing with Construction Permits Indicator. The country eased construction permitting by improving the electronic verification of pre-building certificates.
  2. According to the latest Enterprise Surveys (2010), the top two constraints to investment in Colombia are Access to Finance and Practices of the Informal Sector.
  3. In the World Bank Governance Indicators, Colombia is in the mid-range percentile-wise for many indicators, with the notable exception of Political Stability and Absence of Violence, for which it is below the 10th percentile.
  4. The Index of Economic Freedom gave Colombia a score of 68, making its economy the 45th freest in the 2011 Index. Its overall score is 2.5 points higher than last year, reflecting improved scores for business, investment, labor freedom, and government spending. Colombia is ranked 7th out of 29 countries in the South and Central America/Caribbean region and is one of the most improved economies in the 2011 Index. Despite the economic slowdown in 2009, Colombia continues to maintain strong economic fundamentals, including macroeconomic stability and openness to global trade and finance. With a relatively sound economic policy framework, the economy has expanded at an average of over 4 percent annually over the past five years. Recent reforms have focused on improving regulation and fostering a stronger private sector.

Subnational Doing Business Report

Doing Business in Colombia 2010, the second subnational report of the Doing Business series in Colombia, compares business regulations across 21 cities. The report focuses on local and national regulations that affect 6 stages in the life of a small to medium-size domestic firm: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, paying taxes, trading across borders, and enforcing contracts. It identifies differences in local regulations and in the enforcement of national regulations that can enhance or constrain local business activity.

Main Findings

  • The report finds widespread reforms across Colombia—each of the 13 cities previously benchmarked showed improvements in at least one of the areas measured.
  • A hypothetical Colombian city that adopted all the best practices identified in this report would rank 17th of 183 economies globally—20 places ahead of Colombia’s position in the global Doing Business 2010 report.
  • Doing business was easiest in Manizales, Ibagué, and Pereira. It was most difficult in Cali and Cartagena.
  • Neiva made the most progress since 2008. After eliminating 11 procedures to start a business and 2 procedures to register property, it jumped from the bottom position to rank 11 out of 21 cities.

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