The Bogota Chamber of Commerce provides the productive sector of Bogota and Cundinamarca with information on business procedures as part of the Observatory of the Bogota Cundinamarca Region where, through Power BI dashboards and informative videos, entrepreneurs can find comprehensive and unified information on procedures for 9 municipalities in Cundinamarca and for 5 economic sectors in Bogota at https://www.ccb.org.co/observatorio/Entorno-para-los-negocios/Entorno-para-los-negocios/Tramites-Empresariales.

In the query boards, businessmen will be able to make filtered searches by municipality and in the case of Bogota, by economic activity, accessing detailed information on each procedure with data such as duration of the procedure, entities involved, contact numbers, points of attention, step by step to perform the procedure from start to finish, required documentation, costs and payment channels, regulations applied to the procedure and the links to consult the same. Creating a formal company involves 7 procedures and 10 days, 1 procedure at the CCB in 4 hours and 6 more before different entities that take 9 days. Additionally, in order for the company to start operations, other cross-cutting procedures are required and some sectors such as industry, health and environment require sector-specific procedures.

For this reason, the Bogota Chamber of Commerce is working on initiatives for the elimination of normative and regulatory barriers that seek to simplify the formalities and procedures to create and start up a company. Single Business Window Ana María Fergusson, vice-president of public-private articulation of the Bogota Chamber of Commerce, stated that "in 2022 we are concentrating our efforts, hand in hand with national, district and municipal entities and entrepreneurs, in managing work plans to facilitate the procedures that present the greatest difficulties for the business sector and thus turn Bogota and Cundinamarca into the most competitive region in the country".

Within the framework of this work and with the purpose of simplifying procedures for the creation of companies, harmonizing processes and unifying information, the Bogota Chamber of Commerce has promoted the incorporation of municipalities in the Single Business Window (VUE), achieving the signing of 13 agreements for its implementation with Cajicá and Sopó (2020); Zipaquirá, Chía, Tocancipá, Fusagasugá, Tenjo, Cota, Gachancipá, Cogua, Nemocón, Villapinzón, Sesquilé (2021). As a complement to this work and with the support of territorial entities, unions and entrepreneurs, during 2021 the CCB developed the Mapping and Characterization of procedures for the creation and operation of companies in 9 municipalities within its jurisdiction: Cajicá, Cota, Chía, Fusagasugá, La Calera, Sopó, Tenjo, Tocancipá and Zipaquirá.

These mappings made it possible to identify the procedures that present the greatest difficulties for businessmen, highlighting procedures such as Urban Development Licenses, Visual Outdoor Advertising, Land Use Concept and Sanitary Concept. In 2022 the CCB, with public and private partners in the region, is developing work plans with actions in the short and medium term to facilitate and simplify the procedures mapped and prioritized last year in these municipalities. In parallel to the municipal work, the CCB identified procedures in some economic sectors in Bogota, mapping and characterizing procedures in 5 economic activities in the city: restaurants, neighborhood stores, hardware stores, clothing manufacturing and drugstores.

The level of information gathered in these mappings of procedures now provides a repository of detailed step-by-step information, costs, regulations, times, channels and requirements so that businessmen can consult, in the Observatory of the Bogotá - Cundinamarca Region, the operating procedures, depending on their territory and/or sector.

In order to expand the coverage of this exercise, the CCB is currently mapping 3 new municipalities: Cogua, Gachancipá and Ubaté, where we will also design action plans for the simplification of business procedures.