Create Your Own Business Website Helps Small Companies Get Set Up in Three Days Using Internet
The National Council for Competition (CNC) introduced a new technological tool to help enterprising individuals, lawyers and business people to create their own companies through the Internet at a new website called: www.creatuempresa.gob.do. The website is easy to manage and will help users spend less time on bureaucratic transactions and more time preparing to work in the competitive business environment that is becoming a reality in the Dominican Republic.
Currently it takes around 22 days to set up a business. With this tool, those days will be cut down to 72 hours, eliminating the process of having to visit, in person, every pertinent institution, explained a note from the press office of the CNC. In addition, this website will serve to position the Dominican Republic on a higher level in the competitive world stage due to the fact that the technology used is compatible with all systems. The company that developed the technology is TeKnowLogic, certified by Microsoft and is also the winner of an international contest for website building.
“With this initiative the National Council for Competition is seeking to create a synergy between state and private institutions in order to make the establishment of small companies an easy and agile process so that starting up businesses will be attractive for enterprising people and new investors,” said Andrés van der Horst Álvarez, executive director of the CNC.
Julio Gómez, manager of the company that designed the site, said, “The website is using cutting edge technology.” With this advantage, the website is interactive and compatible with all systems that are not necessarily from the same maker. “They can be open source, closed systems, free software. They’re all capable of interacting,” in such a way that if, in the future, Create Your Own Business develops a new technological system, “it will be capable of growing at the same rate of speed that the society is demanding,” explained Gómez.
The website is a tool of the System of Unified and Integral Attention for the Formation of Businesses, created through decree number 244-06 in June, 2006 by Dominican President Leonel Fernández. This initiative of the president created a Committee to establish a unique opening for the formation of companies. The project is also the result of collaboration between the President’s Office of Information and Communication Technology (OPTIC), the National Office of Industrial Property (ONAPI), the General Direction of Internal Taxes (DGII) and the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo (CCPSD). Last Friday the Chamber of Commerce and Production became involved in order to indentify the other entities that will utilize the site.
The system enables users to complete the forms for the Register of Names, Merchants Register and the National Tax Contributory Register in a safe, simple and centralized process as well as the process of paying and completing transactions all at the same time. In other words, one can create a business from just one point, through the Internet, making the process for the user practically impossible to tell that various institutions are being dealt with at the same time.
The specifications of the system allow users to generate documents, carry out and channel associated costs with the highest level of privacy and security. Another convenience is that payments can be made online by credit card or bank transfer and the user can decide whether to pay all at once or to set up their own system of partial payments for each step of the process.
The level of security on the webpage is characterized by Julio Gómez as “optimal,” meaning that all information on the webpage will be encrypted and based on digital certifications.
Enrique Ramírez, Andrés van der Horst Álvarez, Melanio Paredes and Eddy Martínez.
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