Approval of the regulation to develop the Law on Digital Economy, Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The Council of Ministers, by proposal of the acting Minister for Presidency, Economy and Enterprise, Jordi Gallardo, approved the Development Regulation for controlled test environment or sandbox; the Regulation for digital nomads, visas for entrepreneurs and the promotion of digital economy and the Regulation to create a register for mercantile startup businesses.. The three texts make up the Law for digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation.

As explained by Jordi Gallardo, the deployment of guidelines for the Law allows for the regulation and promotion to create new business models linked to digital economy, promote entrepreneurship, make the competitive advantages of the Andorran economy more attractive, and, at the same time, provide legal coverage for new models of innovation and digital transformation. The acting Minister, who appeared alongside the acting Secretary of State for Economic Diversification and Innovation, Marc Galabert, pointed out that “offering legal security to the strategy of economic diversification in a digital environment”, a sector, which he added, especially worked on during this legislation.

Regarding the Development Regulation for controlled testing environments, named sandbox, its finality is to offer a bound regulated space which allows the launching of products or services with a high innovative component for which a specific regulation does not yet exist.

The acting Secretary of State for Economic Diversification and Innovation, Marc Galabert, ha stated that “innovation moves faster than regulation” and that is why the existence of these controlled environments and their regulation promotes the development of innovation and allow for the analysis in a real bound environment of the behaviors and aspects needed to be considered for future regulation of this innovation.

This regulation develops questions regarding the requirements for access to the controlled testing environments, application for access, testing protocols as well as their development and following, evaluation and result criteria, the supervising authority and the registry of sandbox.

In terms of the Regulation for digital nomads, visas for entrepreneurs and the promotion of digital economy, developed within the article framework of the Immigration Law, it states procedures for Andorran companies whose aim is to promote a digital economy, entrepreneurship or innovation are able to hire remote workers.

The regulation stipulates and facilitates procedures to constitute a foreign company to promote digital economy, entrepreneurship or innovation and previews the authorization process for Digital Nomads. This figure becomes regulated and the conditions are determined to obtain a residency permit, with specificities, as pointed out by the acting Minister, such as the length of the permit limited to two years or the type of permit, which does not hold the same advantages as a residency permit

The regulation previews conditions to promote the establishing and constitution of foreign companies in the field of digital economy, entrepreneurship or innovation in the Principality as well as the conditions to issue residency permits to people participating in the foreign entrepreneur program.

To end, the acting Minister specified with regards to the Regulation of the registry for commercial companies for emerging companies, that its goal is to have a following of the ecosystem of this business model of companies. In this way, a registry for startups is established and operate in accordance with the established economic regime by the law so as to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in business models linked to digital economy.

This regulation also stipulate procedure, resolution and effects of a mercantile startup; the conditions for registration, content or aspects which determine the loss of this condition for companies.

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Text: Govern d’Andorra