Two associations linked to new technologies - the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI) and the Chamber of the Digital Economy of Uruguay (CEDU) - presented a bill in Parliament to promote the installation and development of collaborative economy platforms such as Uber or Airbnb, and to solve their control by the State.
They intend to empower the sector by allowing access to tax benefits and eliminating "unjustified" barriers to market entry. Regarding regulation, the text states that when the platforms "provide other types of services, they will be subject to the specific regulations of the sector of activity in which they operate.
The president of CEDU, Marcelo Montado, told El País that the proposal was drafted under the precept that activities should be regulated and not applications. He clarified that "all actors in these new economies must pay taxes and adapt to existing regulations," although he called for "updating" these regulations.
The bill argues that state agencies responsible for controlling the activities covered by new technologies "must act in coordination to regulate and exercise their own legal powers, providing an appropriate regulatory framework to enable the development of activities related to the collaborative economy.
In turn, it indicates that they must ensure "that the requirements for access to the market will not be discriminatory, and must be justified and proportionate to the specific reality of the business, without privileging one model over another. This section seems to be in line with a ruling by the Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Competition - a decentralized body of the Ministry of Economy - which after dismissing a complaint by the taxi employers analyzed that the private passenger transport sector has barriers that hinder access and free competition.
The guilds also ask to observe for regulation "if the services are provided by professional entities or by individuals on an occasional basis, as well as the degree of influence exerted by collaborative platforms on their customers service providers.
The last article mentions the requirement for applications to comply "with the information requirements". It establishes that they will be obliged to inform users and the competent public bodies of their corporate name, legal representative, domicile or address of a permanent establishment in the country, and the data referring to "any authorization, permit, license or other administrative requirements necessary for their activity".
The initiative was presented to the Committee on Innovation, Science and Technology of Deputies, which has under analysis a government project that seeks to regulate the activity of Uber and similar applications dedicated to passenger transport, and also a proposal of the legislator José Carlos Mahía frontamplista covering all new platforms.
Montado explained that the motivation of the guilds to present their own project arose "to see that there are laws (under study by Parliament) that target the collaborative economy with restrictive messages and not in line with the promotion of the activity".
He stressed that Uruguay has technological infrastructure, trained personnel and good Internet penetration, so "it has enormous potential" to advance "in the creation of an effervescent ecosystem" at the digital level. "We have the necessary inputs, we have to go looking for the wave to start surfing it. So new actors appear or more come from abroad," he concluded.
Source: El País
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