1 year ago in Latin Trade.

BEST CITY In 2004 Sao Paulo celebrated its 450th birthday, and the readers of Latin Trade for the third consecutive year selected it as the best city to do business in Latin America. The list of reasons continues to impress: South America's biggest city, Sao Paulo has 10.5 million inhabitants (not counting the larger metropolitan area of Greater Sao Paulo, which has close to 18 million residents) and the third-largest public budget in the country. It's not surprising that traffic is chaotic: One out of four cars in Brazil is driving the streets of Sao Paulo. It's a city with a precarious mass-transit system, high crime levels and a smog problem, and there's better weather elsewhere in the country. But all this matters little when it comes to doing business and attending to the needs of business people who land here from all corners of the planet every day.