Written by: Portfolio November 27, 2017 – 03:24 p.m.

President Juan Manuel Santos revealed the first results of the strategy of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism “Less paperwork, simpler”, which seeks to make the operation of businesses and the lives of citizens easier, through the simplification or elimination of unnecessary procedures.

The president said that, after receiving more than 1,800 requests and suggestions from the same entrepreneurs, several state entities began debugging their procedures and requirements, seeking to streamline government processes to the benefit of citizens in general and business in particular.

“Minister María Lorena Gutiérrez visited several regions, met with guilds and businessmen. In this process, more than 1,400 applications were received through the web and more than 400 were received from the guilds. This translates into 910 procedures that will be susceptible to elimination, or reformed and simplified (…) In the first weeks, five procedures were simplified, nine were automated and four were eliminated. Every week we will follow up to see how we advance week by week, “President Santos said.

The four procedures eliminated are:
– Some companies that chose to reorganize through mergers or divisions had to have prior authorization from the Superintendence of Companies that could take up to 2 months. This requirement was eliminated.

– Five thousand Colombian businessmen will no longer have to report their financial statements to the Superintendence of Companies, who does not neglect their supervisory work but applies a new risk-based approach. – Hotels that have income tax exemptions will no longer have to request an annual visit to receive this concession. They will be certified once only and this certification will be renewed automatically every year. – The DIAN will no longer require from employers documents that they have already sent electronically or that are already in the possession of the entity, as a copy of the income tax return. A procedure before the Invima was simplified: – Businesses in the food, medicine and cosmetics sectors are no longer required to come to Bogotá to process their health records. The Invima is present in the regions to meet these requirements with “Registratones”. Van 840 benefited in 2017. Five procedures that were simplified through automation processes correspond to Invima, ICA and the Superintendence of Companies: – The status of the procedures before the Invima no longer requires travel, you can consult online through www.invima.gov.co – The administrative acts of Invima are now notified via email. – Invima now issues the Health Inspection certificate, through electronic means, which reduced the process from 72 to 24 hours. – All stages of matters related to resolving business disputes through arbitration decision that depend on the Superintendence of Companies may be handled by electronic means, from the demand to the final decision (award). – Registration as a producer, exporter and packing plant for fresh vegetables (such as avocado hass) can now be done online with the ICA. The required time went down from 20 to 10 days. In four interventions, which correspond to Invima, measures aimed at simplification were combined with automation processes.

– Changes in the food sanitary registration process, which allows the document to be delivered in two working days. – Changes in the sanitary registration process of low risk medical devices such as syringes and gloves. It also reduces the time to two business days. – The same applies to the process of low risk reagents such as those used in pregnancy or laboratory tests. Maximum time, two business days. – The times of the documents issued by Invima were optimized as follows: The certificate of non-obligatory nature for the export of food went from being issued in 15 days to 3 days. Free sale certificate for medicine export: from 30 days to 10 days. Other over-the-counter certificates are now issued automatically and with digital signature, going from more than 15 days to 15 minutes. The government has been eliminating procedures since 2012. More than 1,500 have been eliminated and the goal is to reach 2,000 by the end of this administration. Article taken from the Portfolio page:

http://www.portafolio.co/economia/gobierno/cuales-son-los-tramites-que-modifico-y-elimino-el-gobierno-facilitarle-la-vida-a-las-empresas-512049