Cecafé unveils the new digital online system for issuing certificates of origin in Brazil
April 8 - 2022
Coffee Geography Magazine
At a meeting of the ICO Statistics Committee, the entity highlighted the benefits of its new system, which will reduce bureaucracy, operational costs and the use of paper
The Council of Coffee Exporters of Brazil (Cecafé) participated in a virtual meeting of the Statistics Committee of the International Coffee Organization (ICO). Representing the entity at the event, Technical Director Eduardo Heron demonstrated the technological and operational structure of the new system for issuing mandatory certificates of origin for all shipments of the product.
“We present how the current operational flow and procedures for issuing ICO certificates in coffee exports work and contrast with the future procedure, which will come into force with the implementation of the new system”, he explains.
Heron says that the current process for issuing the ICO's certificate of origin in Brazil is still manual and has many procedures, without systems integration, which generates an excess of typing and can cause mistakes in filling out and checking documents.
“This procedure implies a greater number of professionals involved to guarantee the quality of the process and data, increasing costs for the exporter, who needs people to deliver documents in person at the agencies, and for the certifying agencies themselves for the conference of the material”, he analyses. In view of this, he explains the need to implement the new system developed by Cecafé, which, among other benefits, will allow for a reduction in bureaucracy, operating costs and will be more sustainable, reducing the use of paper. “With the digital signature that we have structured, approved by the ICO, and the use of the SERPRO API – a set of applications that allows communication between the company's platform and the government's platform –, we will reduce typing errors and speed up the process, making it the most modern, efficient and least expensive for all actors”, he explains.
The Technical Director of Cecafé notes that the transformation in the process of issuing certificates of origin of the ICO in Brazil was motivated by the new foreign trade system of the federal government, implemented in 2018 (Portal Único), which aimed to adapt its procedures to the Agreement of Trade Facilitation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), reducing flows, procedures and documents in exports and imports. He adds that, faced with this new reality, Cecafé understands that the ICO certificate of origin can play an even more important role than just being a statistical instrument. “We can integrate other values, essential to the current reality of the world, such as sustainability, traceability, blockchain and transparency, guidelines that the ICO itself brought to its discussion environment, aiming to develop public policies that guarantee income to the sector, especially to producers”, reveals . Heron concludes that the expectation is to continue working to improve the system, processes and bring modernization proposals to the ICO, with technology as a great ally. “We hope that the member countries, together, can build a dynamic, efficient and transparent tool”, he concludes.