Advantages of the VUCE in competitiveness

The Single Window for Foreign Trade (VUCE, for its acronym in Spanish) allows to centralize all the procedures related with imports, exports, and traffic in one place. 

October 18, 2013

It is a single facility (physical or virtual) for the exchange of information between business people and the government, aimed at reducing the complexity, waiting times, and costs involved in international trade. It is currently considered a central tool for the competitiveness of exports, offering more security and transparency in the procedures.  

The document Ventanilla Única de Comercio Exterior: requisitos para una implementación exitosa en América Latina (Single Window for Foreign trade: requirements for s successful implementation in Latin America) describes the advantages for the trade competitiveness of the countries where they have been implemented: 

  • Benefits for the government: improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the resources, greater yields in money collections, increases the acceptance of the operators, improved security, and more transparent information from operators.
  • Benefits for business people: costs associated to delays are reduced, more flexibility in the release of merchandise, clearer and more predictable rules, improvement in the efficiency of the resources, more transparent information from the government.
  • Modifies user behavior (exporters and importers), as it significantly reduces the procedures.
  • Improves the commercial development of countries. The Doing Business report of 2012 illustrates the cases of Korea and Singapore. The Customs Service in Korea calculated that its VUCE produced around USD 18 million in benefits in 2010. In addition, with the VUCE, companies such as Samsung and LG have achieved faster response times, which are now part of their competitive strategies in the world market. In Singapore, its implementation also increased the productivity of the public administration: the operation cost of each Dollar obtained in customs collections is one cent. 

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