The Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC) aims to strengthen the simplification of procedures for the opening of companies and the improvement of the business environment, with technical support from Portugal.
The Opening of the Technical Mission of Portugal was carried out, in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), as part of the Technical Cooperation of the Government of Portugal for the Administrative Simplification and Regulatory Improvement Project, which has the objective of strengthening Paraguay in the processes of simplification of procedures for opening companies, in the platform of the Unified System of Opening and Closing of Companies (SUACE), and analysis of regulatory impact that affect the business environment. This undertaking has the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The meeting was chaired by Minister Luis Alberto Castiglioni, and the Vice Minister of Industry, Ramiro Samaniego, was part of the presentation; the Vice Minister of Commerce and Services, Pedro Mancuello; the representative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Edna Armendáriz; the General Director of the National Institute of Technology, Metrology and Standardization (INTN), Patricia Echeverría; Federico Mora, chief of staff of the Intendancy of Asunción, representing the Municipality of Asunción; the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Portugal, Francisco André; the Secretary of State for Digitization and Administrative Modernization of Portugal, Mario Campolargo. These last two activities participated through the digital platform.
Strengthened Economic Climate
Minister Castiglioni valued the support of multilateral organizations such as the IDB, and the coordination of public-private actions to create the conditions for Paraguay to be conducive to private initiative. “They place Paraguay as a propitious country to develop all kinds of economic initiatives and prosper. I emphasize that the public-private articulation modality is part of our philosophy, with a State that promotes public policies, developing concrete actions that have programs, strategies, and a private sector that is a participant in the process of developing public policies, which is the object of this type of initiative; but he also gives his opinion, decides and is part of the decision processes. They have made possible the development of the economic model that has promoted sustained growth for 18 years, at an average of almost 5% of GNP. From the year 2004 to this time in which we are at this moment, the GNP has grown 700%, and this is precisely thanks to these aforementioned conditions”, said the Minister regarding the strengthening of the economic climate in Paraguay.
He also pointed out that with the cooperation and help of Portugal, through the IDB, progress will be made in the area of continuing to simplify procedures, facilitating all kinds of ventures and initiatives, so that entrepreneurs and MSMEs can be inserted with strength in the system, and be protagonists in national development. “That we can go out much more easily with our products at a global level, not only in the regional framework, and that we can improve our relationship in every way, through the efficiency that we obtain in the functioning of the Paraguayan State. In this we will be committed to the Ministry of Finance, the MITIC, and the MIC will be leading this initiative together with the other institutions that are going to articulate with us, so that the cooperation that we are going to receive has the best and the greatest result”, predicted.
key agenda
Edna Armendariz, IDB representative in Paraguay, said that it is interesting to see how two countries are united by a common agenda, in regulatory improvement and simplification of procedures. She stressed that it is a key agenda to improve the effectiveness of public policies and generate the right incentives to promote competitiveness and economic growth. “That is why since 2020, the IDB approved a technical cooperation to support countries in improvements in this agenda. Paraguay had already undertaken important initiatives to simplify administrative procedures, such as the creation of SUACE and the implementation of a digital agenda that specifically supports administrative processes. However, there is still room to move forward on this agenda. The Portuguese experience is internationally recognized in terms of digitalization, simplification and improvement of regulatory processes that have served as the basis for modeling products of this technical assistance”, she added.
The Secretary of State for Digitization and Administrative Modernization of Portugal, Mario Campolargo, pointed out that the technical cooperation of Paraguay and Portugal, which began in 2020, with the important support of the IDB, is configured, from his point of view, as a opportunity to interconnect and take both countries to a new level to seek concrete results, simplifying the opening of companies and the consequent improvement of the business environment in our country.
“In Portugal we are proud of our portal that aggregates all the information on public services for citizens and companies, including licenses for economic activities. This portal represents one of the highly visible phases of the services available to the administrative mobilization agencies, with many other Portuguese public entities”, he highlighted.
