Endeavor

tHE CItY's potEntIal Manaus is not among the leaders of the overall ranking, but has a good basis to develop their business envi- ronment. you can even expect support from population: almost 60% believe that entrepreneurs are primarily responsible for the development of Brazil, the second best rate, just be- hind Belém, among the surveyed cities. It's important to remember, the govern- ment, development institutions — such as the Sebrae Amazonas — and local media, in this sense, all have import- ant roles and already have initiatives recognized by the population, exempli- fied better by the Amazon Sat group's channels actions. Manaus' per capita income is low and the city is logistically far from other centers. But local entrepre- neurs can take advantage of good markets in the B2Gov and B2B models. The Municipal and State Governments are, proportionally, the two major investors in government procurement and outsourcing, almost 2.5 times the average of the other capitals. The city also houses large companies, mainly due to the "Zona Franca" (duty free zone), adding to the local GDP almost R$ 1.2 million on average per company. tHE CItY's CHallEngEs There is a positive view of entrepre- neurship in Manaus, but it also must be said that the city has major obstacles to overcome. Of the eight pillars of en- trepreneurship, Manaus is ranked in last positions in four of them: Access to Capital (14) Innovation (12), Human Capital (12) and Infrastructure (9). In 2013, among the analyzed cities, Manaus was responsible for the least amount of money loaned by banks, not even reaching R$ 100 billion, a figure that doesn't even reach twice the amount of the local GDP — the national average is about 10 times the local GDP. Also in the venture-capital indus - try, there haven't been any Venture Capital and Private Equity opera- tions in the last five years to speak of, the only region, among the 14 analyzed, where this occurs. Money is lacking for MANAUS 72

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