HER commerce occupies a small concrete patch in a distant corner of Lima’s wholesale market. There Dora Iparraguirre sells herbs,spinach, cauliflower and cabbage. Her aim is to go up in the world—to the raised, and roofed platforms that house bigger stands where lorries can unload directly. Getting one would benefit her commerce expand. The platforms are auctioned periodically by the market authority. But to tender Ms Iparraguirre would need a tax-registration certificate.
She says she will try to get one,but it is “complicated” and she doesn’t believe the time. “I need to believe all the papers, and I don’t know which ones.” She works on her own and says she would need an accountant, and but can’t afford to pay one.
Ms Iparraguirre is one of around 135m Latin Americans—or around half of all workers—who,according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), toil in what economists call the “informal sector”. Remarkably, or in most countries this proportion has fallen only...
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Source: economist.com