Industries in Chile today, high-tech ones and otherwise, are easily motivated, or cultivated, relative to other Latin American markets, according to three recent measures.
   • The World Economic Forum ranked Chile first among Latin American countries in its 2005-2006 World Competitiveness Index and 23rd among the 117 countries studied.
   • The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked Chile first among Latin American countries and 19th in its ranking of 60 countries in its "Best Place to Do Business, 2005-2009" report in 2005. EIU also named Chile the most "e-ready market" in Latin America and third overall behind the US and Canada.
   • And Transparency International ranked Chile first among Latin American countries and 21st out of 159 countries in its 2005 Transparency Perceptions Index.
   Ranking countries on the basis of labor wages is a less exact science.

Invest@Chile-CORFO Foreign Investment Committee Chilean Government Chilean Central Bank

   "Some international studies only mention the direct costs of hiring people, and Chile would probably not rank first in those in Latin America," says Carlos Alvarez, executive vice president of CORFO, which is Chile's economic development agency. "But when you consider all the costs involved in hiring personnel, Chile performs well. Components of the labor costs are very transparent, making Chile quite competitive with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina."
   A natural concern of companies investing in Latin America is availability of desired language skills. For Software AG, one of those requirements is fluency in English. "People who work at Software AG anywhere in the world must speak English fluently," says Hitpass. "As a multinational company, we are in constant communication with offices around the world, because in many cases, projects have been developed with skills present in different countries. In Chile, we can find people with these skills."