And onerous requirements for visas, licences and other permits are as big a hindrance as Africa's bad roads.In such an environment the stamina and know-how to cut through red tape are useful assets.
They include payments for road tax or income tax, applications for passports, visas, driving licences, jobseeker's allowance or student loans, as well as providing or requesting information on a whole range of matters from income to apprenticeship vacancies.
Essentials for just visiting Russia are your: Passport defer.add img); Russian Visa defer.add img); Drivers Licence defer.add img); Obtain Permits and insurance.
And charges are made for a wide range of central public services like passports, visas and driving licences.
Some, such as the central Asian dictatorships that have emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union, manage to be strong in all the wrong areas: they are good at jailing journalists or political opponents, but can't process visas or business licences in less than six months.
PB, Oldham Visa will not give Morgan Stanley a licence to issue Visa cards: the two companies are rivals in the US.
There are already huge government-controlled facial databases: your photo on your driver's licence, government-issued identity card, travel visa and passport ends up in a government office.
The figures demonstrate why universities of all types were so concerned at the UK government's tightening of visa regulations, culminating in the suspension of London Metropolitan University's licence to sponsor students from outside the EU.
Raid Ismail, a retailer in Riyadh, says a business must have a shopfront to get a permit from the municipality, and visas for foreign staff, even once it has a licence to operate from the central government.
Reich was given his visa, but a royal decree was issued stipulating that anyone wanting to practice psychoanalysis needed a licence, and it was understood that Reich would not be given one.
