East Timor is the most tax-competitive economy for businesses among Portuguese-speaking countries. That is according to the “Paying Taxes 2015″ study by international consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, published on November 20 and quoted by online portal Macauhub.

East Timor was ranked 55th, while Portugal was 64th. The remaining Portuguese-speaking countries all came at great distance: Angola was 144th; Brazil came in at number 177; Cape Verde, 91st; Guinea-Bissau, 150th; Mozambique, 123rd; and Sao Tome and Principe, 162nd.

China was ranked on position 120.

The ranking assessed the time required for a case study company to prepare, file and pay its taxes; the number of taxes that it had to pay; and the total tax liability as a percentage of its commercial profits.

East Timor’s total tax rate stood at 11 percent. Businesses in the country spent on average 276 hours a year to comply with tax issues, and they were required to do on average 18 tax payments a year, the study concluded.

“Paying Taxes 2015” investigated and compared tax regimes across 189 economies worldwide, ranking them according to the relative ease of paying taxes. The study, done in partnership with the World Bank, concluded that on average companies make 26 annual tax payments and spend 264 hours complying with tax matters.