Uruguay

A Country of Services

The country- Uruguay has a strong democratic tradition, char-acterized by political and social stability.

- Open, stable and rapidly developing economy with reliable and high level institutions.

- One of Latin America’s highest GDP growth rates.

- Modern and attractive investment regime.

- Remarkable public educa-tion and human capital; first country to implement One Laptop per Child (OLPC).

- There are no racial or religious conflicts. Uruguay is free from epidemics and natural disasters.

Democracy Index

Country Ranking

Country Ranking

Uruguay

Chile

Costa Rica

Brazil

Colombia

Panama

Argentina

25

25

43

75

75

84

106

Lowest corruption

Country Ranking

Uruguay

Chile

Panama

Costa Rica

Argentina

Brazil

Colombia

70

80

89

104

107

118

126

Business costs of crime and violence

Chile

Uruguay

Costa Rica

Colombia

Panama

Brazil

Argentina

10

33

54

58

60

113

135

Economic freedom

Country Ranking

Source: World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010

Source: The Economist, 2008

INVESTMENT AND EXPORTPROMOTION AGENCY

Uruguay is a member of the Mercosur Common Market (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), and has signed FTAs with Mexico and Israel, and a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the USA, among others.

Source: Transparency International, 2009 Source: The Heritage Foundation, 2010

Uruguay

Costa Rica

Chile

Brazil

Panama

Argentina

Colombia

23

27

32

41

43

56

60

- Uruguay is Latin America’s top technology country according to Latin Business Chronicle’s Latin Technology Index.- Uruguay is one of the hot new destinations for outsourcing. Mon-tevideo, its capital city, is ranked among the top 50 outsourcing cities according to Global Services/ Tholons (2009).- 40.0% of Uruguay’s population uses the internet. ( Source: Inter-national Telecommunications Union (ITU)).

- Spanish is the main language, but English is widely spoken among the young. - 58.3% of those using the internet know English (Source: INE – Uruguay’s Statistics Agency).

The digital country

Human capital

Tax and other incentives- Service exports are exempt from VAT.- There is a special promotion regime for contact centers: if the contact center employs more than 150 staff the company may obtain a 10-year corporate income tax exemption.- Companies based in a tax free zone are exempt of ALL national taxes, and foreign staff may opt not to contrib-ute to the Uruguayan social security system.

Source: PWC, 2009. Rebased to Uruguay = 100

- The government guarantees free access to education through University.- Literacy rate: 98%.- 4.5% of GDP invested in education.- 100% of 15-year-olds attending high school have completed at least 3 years of English and 2 years of computer training.

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0Chile

Administrative Finance Manager IT Manager

Colombia Costa Rica Argentina Uruguay

Comparative compensation, net of taxesand social security contributions

Argentina

Uruguay

Chile

Panama

Colombia

Brazil

Costa Rica

20

23

38

48

68

73

78

Tertiary enrollment

Country Ranking

Source: UNDP, 2009

Chile

Argentina

Uruguay

Costa Rica

Panama

Brazil

Colombia

44

49

50

54

60

75

77

Human development index

Country Ranking

Broadband penetration

Country Ranking

Uruguay

Chile

Argentina

Brazil

Panama

Colombia

Costa Rica

46

47

48

54

57

61

63

Source: World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010

Source: World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010

Source: World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, 2009-2010

Chile

Uruguay

Costa Rica

Brazil

Colombia

Panama

Argentina

38

43

62

64

81

82

89

Internet access in schools

Country Ranking

- Several other languages are spoken. For example, in Sabre Holdings’ global customer service center, 15 languages are spoken, incluiding, apart from Spanish and English, other languages such as Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Swedish and Turkish.- Cooperation between the government and a private company: The Knowledge Development Center was devel-oped by LATU (Uruguay’s Technological Laboratory) and Tata Consultancy Services. It provides high quality training for the IT sector in state-of-the-art facilities.

“Our newest office is the one we opened in Montevideo, Uruguay in March 2009, responding to the country’s strong growth and the swiftly-increasing presence of multinational firms, some of which have chosen Uruguay as the headquar-ters of their Latin American operations. In addition to serving Uruguayan clients, Burson-Marsteller Montevideo is expec-ted to begin to perform a more international role within our firm, offering such services as media monitoring and analy-sis for clients operating in Latin America and elsewhere. Uruguay’s highly-skilled and cost-competitive executives, as well as the country’s time zone between Europe’s and North America’s, will enable us to respond more quickly and cost-effectively to client demands.” SANTIAGO HINOJOSA. CEO, Burson-Marsteller Miami/Latin America.

Success stories

“We first came to Uruguay in early 2004... to create a world customer support center. We did an extensive search of many countries all over the world. Some of the key criteria we looked at were economic stability, the safety of the location we were in, the legal structure, the ability to do business in the country. Language diversity was very important for us. We wanted as a global center, of course to support Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, in North America, English, Spanish and French, and across Europe a number of different languages as well. So language availability was very important to us. Today, our operation here has become the second largest site after our headquarters.” YANNIS KARMIS. Vice President Global Customer Support, Sabre Holdings.

“The reason why we decided on Uruguay is that we found that the legal system in Uruguay protects the foreign investor, the transpar-ency of the system is very important to us, the stability of the country was very important and the attention the government gives to investors from overseas was key for us to decide to come here. This country provides an ideal context for the development of the software industry. Uruguay’s advantages as outsourcing center were crucial in setting up the TATA Consultancy Services development center.” GABRIEL ROZMAN. Vice President for Emerging Markets, Tata Consultancy Services.

“In outsourcing, Uruguay has leapt ahead of its neighbors by being the first to understand what could be done -that in today’s world having an Indian company led by a Hungarian-Uruguayan servicing American Banks with Montevidean engineers managed by Indian technologists who have learned to eat Uruguayan veggie is just the new normal.” THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN. The New York Times.

Examples of multinational companies serving the world from Uruguay

Success stories

Rincón 518/528 - CP 11000Phone: (598 2) 915 3838 - Fax: (598 2) 916 3059Montevideo - Uruguay - info@uruguayxxi.gub.uy

www.uruguayxxi.gub.uy

Uruguay XXI is the first point of contact for foreign investors. Services we provide include: - Macroeconomic and industry information. Uruguay XXI regularly prepares reports on Uruguay and on various sectors of the economy. - Tailored information. We prepare customized information to answer specific questions, such as macroeconomic data, labor market information, tax and legal aspects, incentive programs for invest-ments, location and costs. - Contact with key players. We provide contacts with government agencies, industry players, financial institutions, R&D centers and potential partners, among others. - Promotion. We promote investment opportunities at strategic events, busi-ness missions and round tables.- Facilitation of foreign investor visits, Including organization of meetings with public authorities, suppliers, potential partners and business chambers. - Publication of investment opportunities. On our website, we periodically publish information on investment projects by public entities and private companies.

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Among other functions, Uruguay XXI provides support to foreign investors who are considering investing in our country as well as those who are already operating in Uruguay, at no cost.

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