The country's application process to join the Global Standard One (GS1) - the system for identifying and coding goods and services most used in the world -, should be made official by the end of March 2022, he indicated.
In statements to the newspaper Mercado, Farid Bouhamara also made it known that, before the accession process is concluded, the process related to the census of 200 national companies, imposed by Brussels, will be concluded.
"There is a working commission in place, which at this moment is collecting a set of companies that own and use the bar code, in order to comply with the requirements of GS1 Brussels," he said, adding that at this moment 88 entities are already registered.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on "The Internationalization Paths of Angolan Companies", the coordinator explained that after the country sends its application to GS1, the international entity will analyze the documents and see if in fact Angola meets all the necessary requirements.
"This evaluation process will be done until May 2022 and I believe that by June of next year the bar code can be a reality in Angola," he assured.
Vicente Soares, president of the Angolan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIA), cited by Mercado, noted that for national companies to be competitive in the international market they have to create some conditions: "The internal organization, infrastructure, qualification of the workforce, human resources, innovation, among others are part of the package of factors that companies have to create.
Admitting that there are some factors that influence in a negative way the development of companies and, consequently, their competitiveness, Vicente Soares recognized that some reforms made by the Government, such as the Private Investment Law and the Competition Law, have helped to improve the life of companies.
"We still have some problems and we recognize that there is in fact, on the part of the Angolan Executive and the businessmen, political will to overcome them, with a view to the creation of the national bar code. We are aware that this will take some time, but we are close to achieving the preconized objectives", he concluded.
