BUENOS AIRES, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Women entrepreneurs are thriving in Latin America and have become key contributors to economic growth in the region, according to the latest report of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).

    GEM, directed by Babson College and London Business School, is a global research project that measures and compares entrepreneurship activities in more than 42 countries around the world.

    Peru tops this year's GEM annual ranking of women entrepreneurship, with a Female Entrepreneurship Indicator of 26.06 percent. In other words, more than one quarter of the country's working women have their own business.

    It is also a surprise that there are seven Latin American countries among the top 10 nations around the world with the highest rates of women entrepreneurship, the GEM ranking shows. They are Colombia, Venezuela, Dominica, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

    Analysts believe the high rate of women entrepreneurs should be attributed to women's increasing levels of education in this region, as well as the favorable policies and environment implemented and created by the governments of the countries in Latin America.

    Chairman of Argentine Entrepreneurship Foundation Alejandro Machada pointed out that there are several factors behind the high rate of women entrepreneurship in Latin America.

    Women's social status in Latin America has been steadily improving in recent years due to the rise of many left-wing grassroots leaders in the region, who have implemented favorable policies toward women, the elderly and children, said Machada.

    Machada added that the number of women in parliaments has outpaced that of men in Cuba and Costa Rica, while Chile and Argentina have even elected female presidents.

    In the economic field, the male-female wage gap is also narrowing steadily in Latin America.

    In 1990, women in Latin America earned the equivalent of 70 percent of men's wages, according to statistics provided by the United Nations.

    However, it had risen to 90 percent by 2007 and it is expected that men and women would be given equal pay for equal work in the region in 2015. While in the United States, the average annual wages of working women were only 77 percent of that of men in the year 2006.

    Machada said the social environment is very good in Latin American countries for women to start up their own businesses, thanks to joint efforts from all walks of life in the region.

    He expected the Female Entrepreneurship Indicator in some LatinAmerican countries to continue to increase, believing that more and more women would become successful entrepreneurs in this region.

    Women have their own advantages in running businesses compared with men, said Mercedes Garcia, a Brazilian socialist who is a specialist on women's employment.

    Women, who are more caring, always pay more attention to the overall atmosphere of an enterprise and tend to offer more family support for their employees, said Garcia

    They can do a better job when it comes to cost control and enterprise management, as they lay emphasis on the details of marketing and care about the personal feelings of their customers, he said.

    In addition, more and more women in Latin America have engaged themselves in home-based enterprises with much easier access to the internet and fast-developing modern logistics, which allow them to run their businesses at home while taking care of their children.

    However, there are also some problems that cannot be ignored, Garcia said.

    Firstly, there is a high percentage of women's businesses in such sectors as catering, tourism, hairdressing, beauty treatment, clothing and design, which are mostly small- and medium-sized.

    Such enterprises, which are relatively easy to start up, are also easy to go bankrupt because their anti-risk abilities are relatively low. In contrast, women entrepreneurs are rarely seen in such fields as software, finance, real estate and biological engineering, which have much more promising prospects.

    Moreover, the phenomenon of so-called "forced entrepreneurship"must not be overlooked since there is still a considerable number of women in Latin America who cannot get a job with a stable income. They have no choice but to enter into entrepreneurship.

    With a conservative tradition, Latin American societies tend to regard men as superior to women. However, social conventions and traditions in Latin America have changed considerably and women are having their say, as a growing number are entering into entrepreneurship, said Peruvian economist Silvia Torres, who is involved in GEM projects in Latin America.

    Whether their businesses are successful or not, the courage and experience of women entrepreneurs should always be respected and valued, Torres said.