Brazil – The Brazilian government has launched this Wednesday (23rd) the Unified Foreign Trade Portal (Portal Único de Comércio Exterior) program, which will concentrate all of the systems belonging to the organizations involved in the exporting and importing processes.
Finance minister Guido Mantega has said the government’s goal on launching the portal is to cut down the time required for paperwork to take place. "This entails cost reduction for the enterprises. Therefore, our purpose is to make the Brazilian foreign trade system more competitive,” he said during the project’s launch in Brasília.
At the portal, companies will be able to submit the necessary information at once to the federal agencies, minimising red tape and cutting costs. The government estimates that enterprises should save in excess of R$ 50 billion (US$ 22.3 billion at current exchange rates) per year once the project is completed in 2017. The government’s target is to cut down export times from 13 to eight days and import times from 17 to ten days.
The program’s initial phase is Portal Siscomex (http://portalsiscomex.gov.br/), where businessmen will be able to view a log of operations and check the status and progress of export registries, import licenses, export and import clearance declarations.
As a part of the initial phase, the Federal Revenue has implemented a new customs flowchart system last year, eliminating 80% of the requirements for submission of paper documents.
This year, the Integrated Drawback for Web Exemption will be crated, an online, paperless version of the export incentive system.
To the Brazilian minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Mauro Borges Lemos, the portal is a “relevant step towards improving the international competitiveness of Brazilian products.”
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
