The team was able to identify different avenues of analysis for those registration applications that had already been previously registered with regulatory agencies that are highly recognized for their care for the environment and human health, such as those of OECD countries.
In this way, specific paths were defined for Registrations of Active Ingredient Technical Grade by OECD Recognition, Registrations of Complete Data, Registrations by Equivalence and finally Registrations of Formulations.
On April 6, 2022, the decree was signed that gives legal support to this new process design, which, unlike the 13 years that were necessary to receive a resolution on a registration, establishes terms of 43 working days for OECD recognition registrations, 134 days for full data registrations, 68 days for threshold I equivalence registrations and 63 days for threshold II equivalence registrations, and 135 days for formulated registrations.
Some may wonder whether these deadlines will be realistic or whether they will be a dead letter? The evidence shows that having designed the processes prior to the design of the regulation allows us to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposal. This is demonstrated with the registrations of Active Ingredient by OECD Recognition which since January 2021 when the decree was signed to date, has received 3 applications for registration and they have been resolved in less than 45 days, definitely a milestone if we look at the history of the last 20 years.
Best of all, it doesn't end here, this transformation is just beginning. One of the terms we use in the process of cultural transformation is the Japanese word Kaizen (Kai = change = Zen = good), some define it as continuous improvement, Masaki Imai defines it as improving every day, everywhere and everyone.
So as Kaizen is done every day, upon completion with the signing of this decree, the next iteration of Kaizen begins, where we enter the digital transformation phase. A redesigned process and with updated regulations enters the automation phase, where we hope to continue reducing the time it takes to resolve records, improve the user experience and give our farmers better tools for their work.
As Shigeo Shingo said, improvement and excellence are not so much about how much money I count but about using our ingenuity, it is about asking ourselves every day how do we do our job better every day without falling into the forbidden solutions: do not ask for more budget (there is none), do not ask for more employees (there is none), do not ask for more assets (there is none), do not ask for overtime (there is none), do not ask for new systems (there is none)? The only way out is to work with what we have making things faster and better. This is definitely what Arlette's team at SFE, Shirley's team at DIGECA and Illiana's team at MS have done.
Congratulations to all those who have contributed to this great achievement and let's continue working on the transformation of Costa Rica's paperwork. We are close to this issue ceasing to be a blocking factor for competitiveness and investment. We can really make VUI's motto come true: Let's go for 1.
If we believe it, we can be at the forefront of the process as when we were the third city with public lighting after Paris and New York or when we wanted to have a theater as beautiful as those in Paris and we built our National Theater.
