Endeavor

tHE CItY's potEntIal Fortaleza is far from the top-ranked Entrepreneurial City Index, in 13th place, but also features points that can benefit their entrepreneurs. Accompanying the good growth of the Northeast, Fortaleza was the second capital considered the most improved between 2009 and 2011, average real GDP growth of 5.62%, close to Recife (6.04%) and well above the average of 2. 98% of the 14 capitals. And while the per capita income is among the three lower — just over R$ 800,00 — the growth of the region offers good prospects for local entrepreneurs. Even though the access to educa - tion isn't the best and the stock of skilled labor is low, those who do get into university are met with a good curriculums, which guarantees the entrepreneurial scope for good hires. Another important factor in this is that the city offers the lowest wages among the analyzed capital (R$ 2,863 compared to the average R$ 4,800, to hire a manager), so the en- trepreneur can structure a good team investing less than in other cities. Fortaleza also has some other good indicators, such as a good relation- ship between universities and edu- cational institutions and the better perception by the population on the performance of the government as a supporter of entrepreneurship. tHE CItY's CHallEngEs There are many challenges in Fortaleza, but raising money is probably a major one. Especially when seeking credit, the local entrepreneur may have problems: the city has the third lowest level of transactions in relation to GDP, just ahead of Manaus and Vitória. The low investment rate is also noticeable in other sources for fund: in the last five years less than ten operations of Venture Capital and Private Equity took place statewide. FORTALEZA 78

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